The Animal Wars, beginning of the Second
by TalkingChicken
Summary: The first war is finished, but what happened in the one before it?


_**1**_

_**The Valley**_

_Prologue_

The chicken warriors rode through the forest on their bears with pride. Riding quickly towards their mission to sneak around the fort of Dinton and find a way into Elstac and take the King Admens, the king of the humans, captive. General Scott Wing led his men with power and sense, pushing them hard but not beyond their limits. Trees turned into a whizzing green blur as the bears picked up their speed. Captain Lain rode faster until he caught up with Scott, "Sir, we are with a mile of Elstac and at this rate we should reach it in a matter of minutes," he yelled.

"Good! Vortain is with us on this ride!" screamed back Scott over the roaring wind. After five more minutes of riding a strange noise buzzed by Scott which was followed by a terrible scream. Scott turned to see that one of his soldiers have been shot by an arrow in the chest and had gone limp on his bear, "We're under attack!" screamed Scott as he moved his shield in-front of him which blocked many arrows which bounced of lazily. At first sight of an enemy in the trees Scott shot an arrow at, killing the human instantly. Soon another volley of arrows flew in, killing Scott's bear. Scott jumped off and pulled out his sword as hundreds of humans came pouring into the path way from the trees on both sides and slaughtered all of the chickens except Scott. A powerful man stepped forth from the circle of men surrounding Scott, "Winfield!" spat Scott.

"Oh, yes my dear friend Scott. It seems you don't have _that_ bad of a memory, but your quick thinking won't save you this time," remarked Winfield mockingly.

"You can kill my men, you can kill me, but you will _never_ conquer the animals. It's you against every other species alive, the fact is, you can barely fight a chicken!" laughed Scott, though he had just insulted himself.

"Well Scott, it appears you are right. But now, I'm about to conquer you!" laughed Winfield as he drew his black and blood stained sword by the golden and engraved hilt and stepped forward.

"You can go ahead and kill me, but the gods are against you! Illumini will see to it personally that you die a horrible death!" shot back Scott as he called his personal carrier eagle from above and tied his sword to it, "To the King," whispered Scott and the eagle took off. Winfield watched it fly away, "I will die without a fight, if you only give me an honorable death," sighed Scott.

"You? You think you deserve an honorable death? Yeah, like that is going to happen," laughed Winfield again as he moved closer and started to pulled back his sword.

"You, you will pay for this, YOU SON OF A-" started Scott, before his life was cut short by the sword of General Winfield Scorch.

_1_

_The Beginning_

Once upon a time, in a land ruled by animals, humans lived in fear in the city of Elstac. Elstac fought to demolish the animal law that made humans slaves. The people of Elstac went to war to restore the human's rightful place above the animals. This war had lasted for eleven years and the animals were starting to lose. So now, only one thing stood in way of the humans…

Sam W. Wing, the chicken, awoke. He was a scruffy, white feathered, 17-years old with not a care in the world. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the sundial outside. _Ten o' clock_, he thought to himself. _Damn it, the guys are going to kill me!_ He through on a green that said 'Battle Ducks' on the front and some black shorts and dashed out the door into the sunlight and down to the Crown Stadium, the Padfoot ball stadium. Padfoot Ball is played exactly like soccer with one exception: hidden obstacles and traps are placed all over the field, (none of which could kill.). The traps only activate at certain times. For instance a duck might be dropped suddenly into an unseen pool of water. There are no rules about hitting, punching, kicking or just plain beating up another player.  
As Sam scrambled to the field he pulled out his ticket and showed it to the man at the ticket counter. Then he dashed around most of the people in the stadium, running into a few due to his hurry. He ran up the bleachers where he saw his two best friends and five other friends from high school. "Yo, Sam, over here!" yelled his buddy, Tom I. Chicken. "What took you?" yelled his other buddy, Tom's brother, Kenny F. Chicken. Tom was tall, but was on the too-cool-for-school side. Kenny was a rather dimwitted chicken; he flunked out of third grade and never went back to school. Both had bright white feathers.  
"Sorry, you guys, m-."  
"Forget your apologies," shot out James, another of Sam's friends, "just sit and watch the game." So Sam sat down just as one of the players fell through a trap beneath the turf into a pool of water.

"Dang, only ducks are stupid enough to play a game where traps are laid out everywhere," said George, one of the other kids there. As George said this, an over-grown duck was listening, waiting for the right moment. In one quick movement the duck threw George off the stadium's edge. Everyone turned to watch as George fell through the air. He landed head first in cow manure.  
"He's lucky that poop was there, otherwise he'd be in the hospital," said Tom. "I'm okay, I'm going home to clean up. I'll meet you at the little league Padfoot Field after the game." George called back with a mouthful of manure.  
"Sometimes I think George is the most unlucky person I know," said Tom.  
"Tell me about it." James replied.

"Well, he falls off high things and–" started Kenny.  
"He didn't mean it literally!" said Tom, smacking Kenny across the face.  
"Come on you guys, let's relax and watch the game, okay?" Sam asked, so all of them turned to watch the game.  
The Buckbeaks were playing the Battle Ducks and the score was one for the Buckbeaks, and four for the Battle Ducks. They watched a tall skinny duck run with the ball and right as he was about to shoot, the duck and ball were shot into the air by a massive electric fan from under the turf. For about ten seconds the duck and ball floated 30 feet above the ground until the fan shut off and both fell hard onto the ground. The game was on once again as a Buckbeak with the ball flew up field and kicked the ball into the goal. "And an amazing shot by Edward Goldbeak!" the announcer boomed.  
Soon after the game ended, the six boys walked toward the little league padfoot ball field. "Wow, what a come back by the Buckbeaks," said Tom in amazement,  
"Yeah, that was a great shot at the end of the game by David Springfeather!" added Sam.  
"Nah, it was just a bad save by Gunner Blackfoot," said James, trying to protect his favorite team.

"I just hope George can clean his feathers quickly enough so he can play with us 'cause I ain't tackling him like that," burst out Alex, one of the other kids. Every laughed at this.  
"Sorry, you guys. I can't play. My mom wants me home and… she was so strange about it," said Sam,

"You can't bail on us now! You already missed half of the game!" said Kenny, annoyed.

"I can't, I'm really sorry…" Sam sighed and just dropped his head and walked toward home.

"Man, sometimes that guy!" said James, "He won't do anything his mom doesn't say is okay."  
"Oh, come on James, parents don't act mysterious about things if it doesn't matter whether you go there or not!" spat out Tom in one long breath. He stopped to catch his breath.

"Tom, James is right and you know it! You don't need to protect Sam for every little thing!" jumped in Alex. Tom was caught by surprise by this, Alex usually was with him on everything.

"You guys have to be fair on this. You both know it's been hard on him, with his dad being a general, gone in battle all the time with his life at risk. You know that you would be the same if that's how it was for you!" Tom shot back, he gave James a strong glare that made James back away a couple steps. That was all Sam heard as he headed towards his house. The feeling of Tom protecting him in a two against one made him feel a lot better. When he got to his house his mom was waiting for him on the doorstep,

"You had better get washed up, 'cause we're visitin' the King," she yelped in a rather hurrying voice. Sam froze.

_What would the King want with me?_ he thought. But before his mom had time to get angry he rushed to get cleaned. Soon they set off towards the King's castle, both Sam and his mom not even sure why.

_2_

_A Life, A Death, A Quest_

When they arrived at the castle the gates were already open with two guards standing in front and holding large spears.  
"Are you Miss and Mister Wing?" the first guard demanded,  
"Cause, if you is, thy King awaits thee!" said the second guard. Sam started to enter the castle only to be halted by the guards,  
"I said are you Miss and Mister Wing?" the first guard repeated angrily.  
"Yes, now let us through!" yelled Sam. Without a word the two guards pulled their spears back and stood stiff as two pikes. "Losers. You should be fired, you stupid idiots," mumbled Sam as he walked passed the guards. Sam stopped halfway through the door and stared at the main entrance hallway. It had marble pillars that were at least 50 feet high. It was a very long hall with many doors covering most of the sidewalls.

Then a turkey, whom neither had noticed, said "The King is this way." As he said this he pointed one of his brightly colored wings toward the biggest door on the other side of the hallway. So Sam followed him to this massive door. Inside was the most marvelous thing either of them had ever seen in all their years.  
In the center of the room was a very old and rather fat chicken sitting on a golden throne. "Hello, welcome to my castle, Samuel and Jennifer!" the King said in a very loud and cheery voice "Would you like some refreshments?"  
"Sure," Sam mumbled,  
"That would be just delightful!" said Jennifer. The King clapped his hands and immediately five human servants brought a table, two chairs while another ran off to retrieve the food.  
"So, I have some rather unfortunate news for you," the King started  
"Is it my dad?" Sam blurted out.  
"Let the King finish, okay Sam?" Jennifer said. Sam slumped into his chair and crossed his wings.  
"Yes Sam, actually it is your dad, I hate to be the baron of bad news but…. he's dead." As the King said this he looked to the floor as if the words he wanted to say were lying there. Sam leaped from his chair, knocking the refreshments on the servant who was delivering them.

"No! No, no, no, no! You're lying to me. This can't be true. But how, who, what, when, where, why?" Sam said, and he was half-crying.

Jen was starring at the King with wet eyes and an open mouth, sputtering random words, "He… human… weapons… kill… death… pain… suffering… no… no… no… NO!" Jen screamed than slumped limply back into her chair.  
"Slow down. I will answer all of your questions in time. All this, depressing people is making me hungry for dinner. Why don't you sleep here for the night? I have much to tell in the morning. Oh and uh, Sam. The hospital wing is to the right for Jen." said the King and then he clapped like he had when the servants had brought the food minutes ago.

"Right this way, please," another servant said. Sam followed him to his bedroom while another servant helped Jen walk where the King had said the wing was. "Your mother should be in your room when you wake up tomorrow," said the servant as he opened the door to the room, "Sleep well, friend of master!" chirped the human as he walked down the hall from which they had come.  
The next morning Sam awoke and looked to his mom, but she wasn't there. Sam dashed downstairs into the King's throne room. She was kneeling in front of a big wooden box. Sam couldn't tell what it was. "Mom? Mom, are you okay?" Jen turned around. Her eyes were very red and she had a tear running down her face. "I'm fine dear," she sniffled.

"No, your not mom, what's th-?" Sam stopped,  
"Is that dad's-"  
"Yes it is Sam. That's him inside that dark, gloomy and lonely coffin." As Jennifer said this she slowly dropped her head.

"Oh mom, why did it have to be him? I mean, of all the animals out there! Why him?" Jen didn't answer, she just kept starring straight ahead at the diamond covered coffin. Sam slowly fell to his knees, and then onto Jen's lap,  
"It was he who gave us a house. Now how will we make money! How will we do anything without him! He was so nice, loving, smart and such an amazing warrior. Why him?" screamed Sam looking at his mom as if it were her fault.

Seconds later the King emerged from his chamber and into the room. "What a beautiful day it is! I'm up for a ten-mile jog, if only I actually do it could without fainting!" he exclaimed. Then he turned to notice Sam and Jen. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were in here… anyhow, to business!" Sam and Jen both took a seat in front of the King, Sam saw leaning against a shadow covered corner was a tall male chicken looking right at him." As I said yesterday, there was more I wanted to discuss. This is the main reason you are here, besides the death of your father and husband. Well, this is hard to explain, but I'll give it a try. Okay, first is, there is a mission, and it can only be done by a medium aged chicken like yourself Sam… or so says Ross." He mumbled under his breath, "But, I will need your permission Jen, before I go any further."  
"All I want to know is death a possibility for Sam if he accepts?"  
"Yes. There is a possibility of that. But let's think of the positives." The King tried to smile, "Sam, this is about you and you haven't said much. Would you accept if you could?"  
"Hmmm. I'll need to think about it but, one question. Could I bring a friend or two?" the King looked to the corner with the chicken, the chicken nodded.

"Yes, if their parents agree to it. So, your answer is?"  
"Well, I guess I will say…" he took a very long pause, "I've not got much left here, my dad is dead," he mumbled in consideration, "I will do it!"

"Okay, so as I was saying here's your quest…" Before the King could finish, Tom and Kenny barged in with four guards after them,

"I object!" yelled Kenny.  
"Kenny it's not a wedding, you've been watching too many Disney mov-," just before Tom could finish, Tom was tackled onto the floor by two guards and as Kenny stopped to watch he went down with him.

"Get off of them! Get off you damn guards!" Sam ordered "Tom, Kenny what are you doing here?"  
"We came to stop you from marrying Samantha, the ugliest girl in our class!" said Kenny.  
"Kenny, I'm probably not going to marry for couples more years, especially to her. Tom what's the real reason you came?"  
"We came to see if you were okay. We were expecting you to be back by yesterday night."  
"Sam, do you know these kids!" demanded the King,

"Yes, they are my friends." Said Sam proudly.  
"Okay intruders, what do you want?"  
"We want to know what our friend is doing here."  
"Okay then, Sam is here to receive a mission to leave this town and earn money for family. So Sam, your dad and I were close friends. I have a mission for you that could earn your family so much money that you could retire."  
"But, I don't even have a job…" mumbled Sam under his breath, "Also it involves defeating the one who killed your father, General Winfield Scorch. He and his army from Fort Dinton were the ones who ambushed your father's army. Your mission is to get into Elstac and or Dinton and either defeat him and his army or find their weakness and report it to Ross, the chief of war strategy." He pointed to the man in the corner who took a step out to reveal himself. He was very thin and he was wearing a black cloak with beautiful designs on it and had a sword in a sheath at his side. In his hands was a feather dripping with ink and some paper.  
"Hold on, are you saying Sam is about to go into Elstac-"  
"Dinton," interrupted the King through a very fake cough, "-Dinton alone, a very well guarded human castle with a population of over 10,000 trained human knights!" screeched Tom in a aggravated voice.

"Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying, uh, what's your name?"  
"Tom sire, and this is Kenny." Tom replied.

"Then, welcome Tom and Kenny. Since you are here and you are Sam's friends, I'm guessing that he has something to ask you."  
"Yes I do, Tom and Kenny, would be willing to risk your lives to help me with this mission?"  
"Oh! Oh, pick me, pick me!" said Kenny.  
"I accept, under one and only one condition. Since we are risking our lives to help mister King, uh, sir, we actually need some of that money you were talking about. Is it a deal?" asked Tom.  
"That is a deal, Tom!" the King replied happily, "Then let the mission commence!"

Later that day, all of the boys were told how to get to Dinton and were given supplies for the journey. "Pssst!" came a voice from around the corner. Sam lifted his head, "Pssst!" it came again. Sam looked around and saw Mary, the girl from his class who he had been in lover with for as long as he could remember.

"What are you doing here?" hissed back Sam in distress.

"I want to talk to you, before you go away," she whispered back. Sam realized that the prettiest chick in the class who now wanted to talk to him, _alone_. Sam made sure no one was looking and hurried over. "Sam, I guess I've waited too long to tell you this but," she started to hesitate.

"No, please, go on," urged Sam, who was eager to find out what she had to say.

"Well, I… I've love since fifth grade!" she blurted out, then she started to pant as if she had just run the marathon.

"Really? I have too! Only, earlier then fifth grade but, wow, this is amazing." When Sam said this Mary's face lit up again.

"Oh, really? This is wonderful! Oh, I just want to-" Before Mary finished her sentence she lunged at Sam and pulled him towards her and kissed him. Sam was caught by surprise but quickly placed his arms around Mary and closed his eyes. After they both fell back down to earth Sam said, "Wow, Mary, I'm really going to miss you." He placed his arm around his head and rubbed the back of his neck, looking to ground for an answer.

"Don't worry, I will never be far from you. Believe me, now you have a mission to go to." Mary forced a smiled, grabbed him and kissed him on the cheek, then sadly said, "Now go." Sam hesitated and frowned, but started to saunter backwards, never taking his gaze from Mary, who just stood there, yearning to go kiss him again but held herself back, until he was around the corner again.

"Sam, come over here. I have something to show you." Sam followed the King to his chamber, and there he pulled out a diamond sheath which held the most brilliant sword Sam's eyes had ever seen. It had a golden hilt with two emeralds on the far left and right part of the hilt. It also had one diamond carved into a dragon poking out of the middle of the handle. "It's brilliant! Don't tell me: it was my dad's, right?"  
"It sure was, and now it can be yours if you want."  
"I knew it! Considering that I watch a lot of television shows like this. Oh, yeah, sorry. I lost track. To wield my dad's sword has been my dream. I will take it and bring down Winfield once and for all! I hope."

_3_

_General Winfield_

General Winfield Scorch stood tall looking over the edge of Fort Dinton, which was a couple of miles from Elstac. He was wearing a full suit of battle armor, golden gauntlets and a spiked helmet; he stared at the ground with a hint of fire gleaming in his eyes. Winfield sat down and began to spin his long black sword by its golden hilt with an engraving in the language of the Dragon Priests on the ground like a top. "I think those animals are planning something!" he remarked. "I know they are. After all they must want revenge after the destruction of their best men. After all they are blood thirsty creatures aren't they?"  
"Yes they are, sir!" said a nearby soldier.

"Of course they are! We are the rulers of this universe; they just can't take that from us can they? No! They can't, because they are weak minded fools!" said Winfield, "Well… they have put up a good-" mumbled a soldier,  
"Fight? Eh! Is that what you think? You're not here to think, you're here to fight! Here's how much your opinion counts!" Winfield clenched his fist and three iron spikes came from one of his two golden arm plates, one on each arm. He pointed it at the soldier's throat, "Well what do you think of this? Does your opinion count here?" He moved the claws closer to the soldier's neck, then a little closer until the soldier started to back up towards the ledge. Within seconds the soldier was off the edge and into the water of the moat. All the soldiers bent over the ledge to watch, careful that Winfield didn't push them in too. They watched as the soldier was pulled under the water by three ferocious looking alligators. About 30 seconds later the water turned dark red.  
"If you give the enemy one single compliment they will gain power! We cannot give them that power. Do you read me!" commanded Winfield,  
"Yes sir!" replied the soldiers in unison.

_4_

_Old Man Sam_

Sam, Tom and Kenny started walking from the castle, "Bye, Sam. Bye, Tom and Kenny! I'll miss you and, try to come back in one piece okay" Jen called back after them.  
"I will mom, we all will!"  
So the journey began and all three were supplied with two weapons each, one a sword and a bow with arrows "Wow, I couldn't have picked a better day to start this very long walk of ours," Sam pointed out,  
"Me neither, I don't think anyone could have pick a better day!" Tom agreed "Now let's see, this map says that there will be a mountain up here called… Mt. Tender? What kind of name is that?"  
"Isn't that a kind of meat or food of some sort that humans eat?" Kenny answered.  
"Yeah, I think it's a way that they cook chicken. Can't believe that humans once ate us and we could do nothing about it!" Sam said in disbelief "I mean, us just sitting there defenseless while they, pluck my feather's and dunk me in salt!"  
"They did that to us?" asked Tom.  
"No! I mean look, a house! A really big house!"  
They all bolted over to the house to see who occupied it. Inside the open door was a very old man  
"Who's there!" the man demanded  
"Stand your ground guys!" Sam commanded. "It is Sam Wing, Tom and Kenny Chicken from the city of Missair. Who are you?"  
"Most people call me Old Man Sam, you can just call me Old Sam since you are also called Sam."  
"Wow, that's cool, we have the same names!" cried Sam, then Old Sam stuck out his hand Sam and Old Sam shook. "Wow, your hand is all feathery, you should see a doctor about that."  
"Can you see, or are you blind?" Kenny asked. Tom elbowed him in the chest. "Ignore my brother's impoliteness and please forgive him."  
"No, no it's fine," Old Sam spoke in a hoarse voice, "I actually can't see my hand in front of my own face in the broad daylight."  
"Kenny, Tom, he doesn't know we are chickens! Pretend that you are a human, okay?" Sam whispered.  
"That's too bad, how did it happen?" Tom asked Old Sam.  
"Well, it is rather gruesome but… I'll tell you anyway. Well, it was the battle of Theerandor and we had just broken the gates down when suddenly a massive pot of about 4,000 degree water poured right onto the front line of men, killed half, burned, blinded or just plain tortured the rest. I was one who was blinded, not to mention I fainted right when the water touched my skin.  
"Later I awoke in the medical room. I thought I had died, 'cause I had a dream of another world that seemed… different. I saw my brother, only he was another person, and mom parents and sister were all different, it was weird but I could have sworn that it was some sort of heaven. It was so real, I felt the from my wife, and the hugs from my brothers, the handshakes with my friends." Sam and Tom were lying on the floor staring at Old Sam with wide eyes. Kenny paid no attention to the entire thing, he was walking around the house touching and breaking things. Kenny walked back into the room.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" he asked.

"You dimwit, don't you realize that he almost died out there on the battlefield?" said Tom angrily.

"And that all his family is dead? Sheesh, what is this world coming to?" Old Sam and Sam sighed at the same time.

_5 _

_A Weasel_

Ross walked into the King's chamber "Sire, we will have to launch an attack on Fort Dinton soon. According to my analysis, it will take Sam at least a month to reach Elstac, but if we launch an attack of Bear Riders on Dinton, they will reach Dinton in a matter of days. So we will need to stall Winfield and his army so that Sam gets some time to reach Elstac in peace. For he would be helpless if Winfield got to him before he reached Elstac," explained Ross

"I see, you have a very good point. See to it that 1000 Bear Riders are ready by morning." replied the King.  
"Yes sir!"

Winfield watched archers in metal chain-mail training from his chamber window high up in a tower on Fort Dinton. Then he turned to the fort's wall. Next to it he thought he saw something move. "Grant!" yelled Winfield. Grant (Captain Grant) ran into the room. He was wearing light metal armor that covered his whole body excepting his neck and behind his legs. All the soldiers in Dinton always wore this, in or out of battle.  
"Yes sir?"  
"I saw something move at the front gate. Check what it is."  
"Yes sir!" Grant ran out of the room. Winfield watched from the window as Grant ran to the gate, opened it and disappeared behind it. There was no sound but the clang of swords and the fire of arrows. Winfield couldn't tell if it was the archers and swordsmen training or a fight behind the wall.

"Grant! What is going on down there?" Winfield called down. A minute passed, no answer. "Grant? Grant? Are you, oh…" As Winfield said this, Grant's gored and cut up body was thrown back over the wall, "Guards! Get to the front gate immediately!" screamed Winfield. All the guards, fully armed, ran to the front gate, looked outside and saw nothing but a foxhole in the ground. A soldier walked over to it "Notin' in here, 'cept some red mushy stuff that's making a beatin' noise, like, bum, bum, bum."  
"You idiot! That's Captain Grant's heart! It's still beating! The thing that killed him is down there!" said another soldier.

"Get lots of water, I want that thing flooded out!" ordered Winfield, who was now fully dressed in uniform and on the training grounds. Soldiers ran off to the well to respond to the command.

"It's getting dark out, can we stay with you tonight, Old Sam?" asked Sam,  
"Why, sure you can Sam, or is it Tom, or maybe Kenny?"  
"No, you had it right the first time."  
"K, good. The extra beds are in the closet down the hall. You can just take three out." Sam took out a bed, followed by Tom and Kenny. They set up their beds "I'm headin' to bed. See-ya in the morning," said Old Sam

"Good night," said Sam.

"Good night," said Tom

"Will you read me a story?" asked Kenny.  
"No, now good night all," said Old Sam as he walked into his bed room."  
"Do you guys think we should tell Old Sam the truth, about us being chickens?" asked Sam.  
"Maybe, I'm just afraid of the way he will react if we do tell him." said Tom,  
"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. How about you, Kenny, what do you think?" said Sam.

"Have you ever noticed how war badges are all shaped funny?" said Kenny, who had picked up a box of Old Sam's badges.  
"Uhh, yeah. I'm just going to pretend that never happened." said Tom, "I think we should tell him in the morning." said Sam, "Yeah let's do that," answered Tom. Then they all fell asleep wondering how Old Sam would respond, with the exception of Kenny, who was wondering who picked the shape of war badges.

"All Bear Riders ready?" asked Ross  
"Yes sir!" answered all 1000 bear riders. Bear riders were just chicken-soldiers who rode on the back of a bear. All they had were crossbows or bows and swords. Chickens never wore armor for it slowed them down too much.

"All right, chickens, here's the plan. Ride to Dinton at full speed. Archers take out the sentries, break down the gate with the bears and kill as many men as possible, though actually, we are doing this not to kill, but to burn time for Sam. Luther will give you further instructions when your there. Do I make myself clear?" roared Ross.  
"Yes sir!" roared back all the chickens.  
"Now move! Move! Move!" The bear riders stampeded out of Missair and onto their journey.

The hole was almost full, Winfield had stood at the same place the entire time. "Hold the water, we need the rest for drinking. Look, stand back and be ready for anything." said Winfield, and like he told them to, they stood back, but not ready for to fight, they where all hiding behind Winfield, he didn't notice though. They all watched as a black snout popped out from the water, the came the head of and silky black weasel gasping for air.

"Tis' nothing but a weasel!" cried a soldier, "Let's kill it for Grant!" All of the soldiers notched there arrows and aimed.

"No! Don't kill it, let's see if we can make it tells us something." said Winfield, "Yeah, milk it for all it's worth." said a soldier. All the soldiers put down there weapons and started to chat. One stupid man who still had his arrow notched lifted his arm in the air while talking, letting the arrow fly right passed Winfield's ear and into the weasel's shoulder, which cried in pain.

"You nearly killed me you idiot!" Winfield stormed over to the soldier, "I should torture you worse then I would those animals!"  
"Umm, don't mean to bother you but, the otter is trying to run away." said Captain Sage.

"Not to mention it's dying." said a soldier,

"It's dying?" screamed Winfield. "Sage, get him back and his wound covered, we need him healthy to torture him."

Sage ran over to the weasel that was crawling away on the ground, "Okay weasel, we're going to let you come in and if you tell us information you will die quickly, if you don't tell us you will be tortured." said Captain Sage.

"Is that a privilege? To die fast?" asked the weasel, by the sound of his voice Sage guessed he was around 30 years old.

"Well… no, it isn't. But if you die fast you wont have much pain dying as you would being tortured." answered Sage.

"Well then I'd just kill myself so that I don't tell anything about my town and that I don't get tortured." said the weasel.

"Wow, you're not dumb." said Sage, Hmm, well maybe-"  
"Sage! What's taking so long?" called over Winfield.

"Sorry sir, one second. Alright weasel, come with me!"  
"Why should I? I could just kill myself right now and you'd get fired or killed for it. Sucker," laughed the weasel.

"Why I aughta'!" Sage moved for the weasel.

"I wouldn't do that. That is if you want to live." The weasel said this half laughing, "No matter what you do you'll die. Hope you had a nice life." The weasel started crawling further away. "Guards get that weasel! He's getting away!" Four guards grabbed the weasel and dragged him back to the Fort. "Ha! Didn't see that one coming, aye, weasel?" laughed Sage. No one noticed the rooster in the bushes who had watched the entire thing. The rooster hopped the back on his bear and rode back to Missair.

_6_

_A Family Reunited_

"Tom, Tom, wake up Tom!" Sam was already up and waking up the others, "Come on you guys get up! Old Sam has gone down with a disease, he's dying!" on that Tom shot up like a rocket.

"What do I need to do to help?" asked Tom.

"Yeah, what can we do to help?" asked Kenny.  
"Kenny, um, go get some… hmm. One gallon of… hmm. One gallon of the morning dew found in a Snow Flower!" said Sam.

"Hye, hye, Captn'!" Kenny ran out the door in search for the flower.

"What's the dew for?" asked Tom.

"To keep him out of the way." answered Sam.

"Nice move, I would have never thought of that one." said Tom thoughtfully. "Okay Tom, get a bucket of ice cold water and something to soak it up with. Then meet me in Old Sam's room."  
"I will Sam!" and he dashed off to the well. Sam went into Old Sam's room, "Don't waste your' time and supplies on saving me. I can hardly tell where my food is when I'm eating it. Just leave me to die and go onto your quest." said Old Sam in a raspy voice. He started coughing a lot.

"Hang in there Old Sam, when Tom gets back we can save you. So just try and make till then." said Sam.

"I won't make it, take all the supplies from my house that you need. I won't live to use them. Tell Tom and Kenny good bye…" Old Sam went silent, seconds later Tom came in, "Here it, oh no! Is he still alive?" said Tom.

"No, Tom, he's dead. With his wife, brothers and all his friends from war. He'll be better off up there. Good Bye Old Sam…"

_7_

_The Attack, The Prince, The Escape_

"King Sire, a rooster has come with a message for you."  
"Bring him in!" ordered the King, in walked a short and stubby rooster.  
"King Sire, the town of Theerandor had sent a spy by the name of Shadowback and was just caught. They will most likely torture him for information," explained the rooster.

"Hmm, Shadowback you say? He's the prince of Theerandor. The weasels will go mad over the death of their prince! Then they'll attack with all they have and lose! Then they will be taken from our enemy list right off the feather! This is great. But, we will need to finish them off after they attack. All right rooster, go back to Dinton and come back the second you see Theerandor's army attacking. If they don't attack with in one month, come back. And if they do attack, we'll have a horde of men waiting here." laughed the King.

Shadowback was sitting in his new cell, looking at his surroundings and starring at the other animals that had been forgotten and left to starve in the other cells. Shadowback got up and looked at the bricks, inspecting each and every detail, "Hey, new guy." said a good-sized otter on the other side of chamber, "We all tried, there's no way out."  
"Ah, but that would mean you are a mere simpleton. If you look at this brick, it is made with granite and iron combined. And if you combine those two it makes the strongest kind of brick, right?" all the others nodded, "And that way, it is completely solid." He said this as if he was a teacher, "So that means is not possible to brake, but it will not stick very well. That means these bricks are not sticking together that well, so if I took this rock," he picked up a rock the size of a bowling ball, "Watch and learn kids!" he started swinging the rock back and forth until it was about to hit the walls on both sides of him, "Don't think we haven't tried that already New Guy." Shadowback ignored him, seconds later he let go. The rock hit the wall and shattered. "Ha! See, we're as good as dead here," said the same otter who had said everything before, "Ah, but wait!" Shadowback picked up a dagger shaped shard of the rock he threw and slid it into a crack in-between two rocks and started chipping away. Only one animal noticed his progress, and it was only an eight year old hedgehog was in the same cell as Shadowback who hadn't been noticed yet. The hedgehog admired his optimism and prayed for his success.

The bears roared and the riders screeched with them. Anything in there path was stampeded and smashed to bite size pieces. All the bears looked as if the had rabies, "Men!" cried Luther, the leader of the raid, "Fort Dinton is in sight, just follow my lead!" he took out his crossbow and slowed down the bear. Soon the stamped was only a walk and every man had their cross-bow out and loaded, "Men, we need to be quiet as possible so they don't know what hit 'em." said Luther. All the men moved in, hopped off their bears and got low to the ground and moved in a slow crawl. Luther took aim on the nearest sentry, slowly moved his finger along the trigger of the crossbow and fired. The only thing anyone heard was the sentry's body hit the stone. The other soldiers followed his lead and aimed. The sentries were dropping like flies until one noticed and dove to the side, crawled over to a horn and blew it.

Winfield jumped up from his bed and ran five circles around his room, "What's happening! Help! Help! Somebody tell me what is happening!" after his fifth lap he slipped on his velvet rug and hit the wall. Then he got up and into his best battle armor. Grabbed his sword and crossbow and ran out side, the battle had already begun. As he ran he loaded his crossbow and went to help fight. Many men had fallen on both sides, arrows were flying into the rider-less bears witch were destroying the gates and into everything else. Almost 50 arrows went into Diablo, which was Luther's bear, before he went limp. "Alright, I'm fine losing to bears, lizards, snakes and other powerful things, but losing to chickens is not my thing!" roared Winfield as he killed a chicken next to Luther.

"Kile!" yelled Luther.

"Yeah?" answered Kile.

"Bring some bears and go around and use them to break down the wall. According to Ross, that wall over there should be the jail's wall. Break it down and free the prisoners." ordered Luther.

"Yes sir!" Kile made a break for it and dove behind a rock. Then he grabbed five bears and went into the trees, and then around to the other side of Dinton. Luther watched him run, then battle took him over and he was back to slaughtering like no other had ever done. "Alright big guy, your time is up!" Winfield muttered under his breath as he aimed at Luther. "Luther, look out!" screamed a chicken.

Sam had collected all the supplies that they needed when Kenny came through the door, "Hey guys, I got the Snow Flower dew!" he said in a very proud voice, "Hey, you know what, shut up." said Sam. Tom and Kenny were surprised that somebody like Sam would say that. "Hey Sam, you alright?" asked Tom, "Yeah, I'll be alright." said Sam, "Are you sure?" asked Tom, "Yeah, I'm sure." The trio collected all their stuff started their walk, on their way up Mount Tender all three were speechless.

"Listen, do you hear that?" Shadowback asked the hedgehog.

"Yeah." He squeaked.

"What is it?"  
"That my friend is the sound of war. Grab a stone and help me hit the walls. We need to get out fast so that battle will distract that bloodthirsty mongrel." The hedgehog started to bang on the wall with a stone. "Little hedgehog, what's your name?"  
"The name is Hedgehorn, but you can call me Spike."  
"Well Spike, my name is Shadowback, the Prince of Theerandor."  
"Cool, so I'm talking to a prince right now, uhh, your highness."  
"Yeah, but don't think of it that way. Think of it as talking to a new found companion and friend, only because I prefer to be a warrior, not some lazy prince. I've always liked the sting of battle over sitting and relaxing. So, I trained in the art of stealth and became a spy. And if you want, I can teach you everything I know about stealth."  
"That would be a dream come true!" responded Spike. All of a sudden the wall started to shake from the other side. "Spike, their freeing us!" yelled Shadowback as the wall broke down into rubble. There they could see a chicken with five bears standing there, "Come on, get out here now!" yelled the chicken, "Alright Spike," whispered Shadowback, on the count of three run over to one of those bears and get on. Then follow me on the bear. Got it?"  
"Yes sir!"

Luther fell hard to the ground, arrow in his throat, "Now who's on top?" laughed Winfield. A medic ran towards Luther, "Luther, hold on! I might be able to help." The medic told Luther, Luther did a faint nod telling the medic he was still conscious. The medic pulled out a long rubber tube with a scissor on one end, a trigger on the other. "Luther, open your mouth." Luther did, the medic started to slide it down Luther's throat. Once he heard the blade hit the arrow shaft he squeezed the trigger, cutting the arrow in half. Then he pulled the tube out and took out some bandages, Luther was now unconscious from his lack of air with the arrow in his throat. Then the medic slid one side of the arrow out and quickly covered it with bandages, and then he did the same with the other side. The medic listened closely for the sound of breathing, he heard a deep long breathe from Luther. _He is alive! But he is still unconscious,_ thought the medic, _I have to get him out of battle._ He then reached for the shield of a fallen chicken, picked it up and started to crawl backward with Luther on one arm, the shield on the other. The second he moved away from the barrier the medic heard maybe fifty arrows hit the shield. When the medic finally got Luther to the trees, he leaned him against a tree, picked up the shield and went back to help others. The gate had long fallen and swords were clashing, arrows flying, and men falling.

"Go!" yelled Shadowback. Spike and Shadowback screamed as they ran at the chicken.

"Help! The captives are attacking me!" screamed the chicken as the weasel and hedgehog went right passed him and onto the bears, "Follow me!" yelled Shadowback. They started to ride away into thee forest.

"The captives stole the bears!" screamed the chicken behind them before he fell under with arrow through his neck. "Ouch, that's gotta' hurt," said Spike, "Yeah, but at least we're away with our heads."

Winfield watched as the chickens fled into the trees, "Don't waste your arrows on them, the dragon will get them." All the soldiers started to help the wounded and repair the gate.

"Alright men, double time. We have to get ready incase there's another attack." ordered Sage.

"There won't be," said Winfield quietly as he leaned towards Sage, "They'll die if they do. But don't tell our men that, I need them to work hard."

"We're almost there," panted Tom as he look at the summit.

"Maybe there will be something on the top." suggested Sam.

"I think there will be a powerful mage who claims he's the protector of this 'sacred' mountain," Kenny made two of his fingers go up and down as he said sacred, "and we will find him inside of a cave." Both Sam and Tom starred at Kenny in bewilderment.

"Kenny, you've been reading too many fantasy books." said Tom.

"Uh, Tom. This may just be coincidence, but there's a cave over there." said Sam.

"Sam, there are lots of caves on mountains, it's just a cave. Anyway, a blizzard is starting. We'd better get inside." All three boys went inside, it was a normal cave. "Nothing unusual." Sam and Tom sighed at the same time, very glad that Kenny wasn't right about the mage. They kept on walking deeper and deeper.

"Who goes there?" echoed a loud and harsh voice, "It is I, Sam Wing, and these are my friends Tom Chicken and Kenny Chicken," answered Sam.

"You have disturbed the peace of the mountain! As the protector of this mountain, you shall pay!" boomed the voice, then a tall, old looking human in robes, had a long beard and he was holding a long staff with a blue, glowing orb attached to the top.

"Yep, it was coincidence," said Tom sarcastically.

"Good bye travelers!" roared the man as a massive portal opened behind the three chickens and sucked them in.

"Help!" screamed Sam.

"I'm to young to die!" yelled Tom.

"Look at the pretty colors!" said Kenny right as they disappeared into the portal.

The chickens walked through the forest looking around as if something were about to lash out at them any second, "Maybe we should go back, out of the forest," suggested a chicken in a frightened voice.

"No. We stay in the forest until we are out of firing range from the castle." said the medic who had helped Luther.

"Hey, at least we could go get Luther if we did." said the same chicken.

"Fine. We go back only to get Luther, not to sit there and party." All the chickens turned and headed in the direction from which they thought they had come.

Shadowback and Spike were deep into the forest now, "Hey, Spike. We'd better stop to sleep soon."  
"Yeah, your right, it's getting dark." said Spike. So then they started to look for a place to sleep, "Hey, look, over there! Under that tree there's an area. Could that fit us both?" asked Spike.

"That could work, let's sleep there." Both Spike and Shadowback crawled under the tree and fell asleep.

Winfield paced his room, Sage standing and watching, "Those damn chickens did too much damage for their own good. We need to fight back! What city did you say they were from?" asked Winfield to Sage.

"Missair, sir. But if we attack we leave our fort-"  
"We would need to attack within a week." interrupted Winfield.

"But sir, if we attack we'll leave our fort def-"  
"We would need about 4,000 men." interrupted Winfield again.

"But sir!"

"What?"  
"That would leave our fort defenseless! If we were to be attacked again we would die faster than an arrow flies!"  
"No, that's stupid. But if we leave the fort and got attacked we'd surely die faster than a, like uh, like…"

"Faster than an arrow flies," sighed Sage.

"Yes! We'd die faster than an arrow flies. Now let's get some sleep."

_8_

_Alice in…I mean, Sam in Wonderland_

Sam, Tom and Kenny hit the ground hard. Only Sam was still conscious from the fall. He got up and brushed himself off. _Wow, this is a cold place,_ Sam thought. He shivered, and placed his wings around himself to keep himself warm. He started to hear a far off noise, like, a dying horse or something, Sam couldn't tell. Sam looked around, there was lots of snow falling from the forbidding sky. Also many white cliffs, tall mountains of pure white, it was a wonderland of white. _Is anything _not_ white here? _thought Sam. Or, or was it another dimension, Sam couldn't decide what to call it. All he knew was Kenny and Tom were unconscious, he was not near home, it was really cold and there seemed to be no way out of this world. He started to hear the screeching again. _What is that?_ Sam thought as looked around for the source of the sound. Nothing. He shivered again, then put his arms around him to warm him up. Tom stirred a little, "Tom! Tom! Wake up, you have to see this." Tom slowly got up, rubbed his eyes with his wings, then looked. His mouth dropped.

"Where are we?" Tom asked, "And why is it so cold?"  
"I wish I could answer those Tom but I have no clue." Kenny got up and he did the same Tom had.

"Whoa. Dude, where are we man?" said Kenny, which startled Tom and Sam because they didn't realize he was awake.  
"Kenny, we have no idea."

Kenny hadn't listened, "Dude, it's a white wonderland. That's hecka tight!"  
"I think the drop did something to his brain," said Tom.

"I would have to agree," said Sam, "we had better find some shelter fast, or we might freeze to death. Let's go that way. I heard a noise that sounded like a dying horse. So I say we go that way." The three boys started their long walk through the white wonder land.

The noise was getting louder now and it was accompanied by and loud screeching noise now. "That noise is giving me a headache," complained Tom.

"Dude, no need to worry, I found something that's hella tight and it will get your flaming mind off of its pain." said Kenny, Tom groaned.

"Okay Kenny, show us whatcha' got." said Sam. Kenny started to run faster and faster, then he stopped and he slid along the hard ground for about 20 feet.

"Wow, that's actually pretty cool," said Sam and he joined Kenny in the sliding. "Come on Big T," begged Kenny, "Join us! You're totally missing out."  
"No, that's okay. I'm fine walking on the nice solid grou- whoa!" said Tom as he slipped and hit the ground hard. Sam and Kenny laughed, "Hey, it wasn't that funny." said Tom.

"Sorry Tom, I can't help it." said Sam, laughing out the words. Tom stood up, crossed wings and started to walk faster.

"Dude, there's no running from us Tommy boy!" said Kenny from behind. Kenny was the first to catch up to Tom, and once he did he slide tackled him into the fluffy powder.

"Why I aughta'!" said Tom spitting out snow. He picked up a bundle of snow, mashed it together and threw the snowball at Kenny who was hit in-between the eyes and fell into the powder too. Soon, a huge snow fight was going on and everyone was flinging snow everywhere. "Wow, you sure can put up a fight Tom," said Sam.

"You're talking to the dagger throwing champion of the year four years in a row! It's kind of the same motion if you get to the basics." said Tom.

"Whoa! I didn't know you can throw daggers!" said Sam.

"Yep, I am King of the blade!" said Tom proudly.  
"Hey, look!" shouted Sam, "There is something up ahead, wait, it looks like a, a bird in a tuxedo!" They all stopped and stood watching the strange bird do something to the ground. _So it was the thing making all the noise,_ thought Sam. "Guys, lets go get a closer look." said Sam. All three of the chickens started to sprint forward, when they got with in 50 feet and they saw it had farming clothes on and it was raking the ground with a pitch fork which made a terrible screeching noise. The bird started to turn around, the chickens dove behind a snow pile. They listened, all they heard were feet moving towards them. The footsteps started getting louder, louder, louder, and then nothing. Nothing but the cold, hard, breathing of Tom, Sam, and Kenny.

_9_

_A Dragon, A Revival, What More Do You Need?_

Every chicken in the forest was walking in a crouch position, waiting for something bad to happen. "Hey, I think I heard something that way!" screamed one of the soldiers, as he pointed to his right.

"No, I heard something that way! Not that way!" yelled another chicken as he pointed towards a cave.

"Let's see what's in it!" All the soldiers walked slowly to the cave, it sounded like a hard, deep and painful breathing. Then one froze, pointing at a huge black figure, it was a dragon! Its long neck was curled into a spiral next to one of its four powerful feet which had four powerful talons, three in the front and one pointing backward. It had spikes jutting up from along its spine and it had a powerful tail with a sword-like spike that looked as if it could cut straight through metal. It had two muscled wings that were folded in a ready position. On its long face were to razor sharp fangs coming from the sides of its mouth. Above the eyes stood two three foot horns that could run straight though a person and every time it breathed its upper lip quivered and went back down, showing a ferocious row of dagger-like teeth. At the sight of it everyone froze exactly how they stood.

"Everyone just walk away," whispered a chicken. Everyone took two steps back, three and then they stopped again. Then a chicken screamed, pointing at the floor. Everyone looked and saw a head with brains coming out of the neck. Everyone started running, the dragon woke to the noise of the screams and got to its feet like lightning. It looked around then took a big running start after the screams. It quickly gained on them, it jumped high into the air claws out stretched and jabbed its talons into one of the chicken's legs, "Help me! Mommy! Please, god no! No! Nooo!" the chicken sobbed as it was dragged into the cave. All the chickens stopped and watch as the poor chicken got mutilated and eaten by the dragon. As soon as the meal was over everyone ran to the end of the cave and out into the sunlight.

_Gryphons flew everywhere, they were they controlled the skies over the half deserted town of Syron. They would feed on any human if hungry. They were the lords of the sky…_  
Winfield awoke from his dream. _That's it!_ he thought. He put on his dark blue silk suit, it had golden epaulets on the suit's shoulders. Coming off the epaulets was golden tassels that were about two inches long that hung loosely to the sides. He put on his lightest and nicest riding boots which had a cobra hissing in silver which was on the outside of each boot, and burst out of his room, almost hitting the guard watching it. He quickly went to Sage's door and burst it open. Sage was standing the tying his sheath on his silver belt. "I've got it Sage, I've got it!"  
"Gotten what, sir?" asked Sage curiously,  
"I have what we need to win this war!"  
"Do tell sir, I'm dying of anxiety." Sage said half sarcastically, Winfield didn't notice. He was too excited about his plan.

"I had this dream last night. It was about Syron. I remembered the Gryphons, the lords of the sky. My plan is to ride Syron and get some trained Gryphons."  
"It's brilliant sire, but no one I've ever heard of has captured one of those things!"  
"But I do know some one, and he, my friend, has a_lot_ of gryphons…"

"Hello boys!" said a southern drunken type of voice, "Would you like some whiskey or something?" They all turned. In front of them was a big penguin wearing farmer's clothes that were far too big for him. Sam jumped back. "Sorry, pardon me, I didn't properly introduce myself. My name is FarmerPenguin, but you can call me Farmer or Farmer John."  
"Wait," said Tom "Your name is Farmer?"  
"Why, yes it is."  
"Weird." Tom muttered under his breath.  
"Where do you live?" asked Sam,  
"I live further north with the rest of the Penguin Clan."  
"The rest?" asked Sam,  
"Yep. The rest. Lets go and I'll introduce you to the clan… wait, what your name's kids?" asked Farmer.

"Sam."  
"Tom."  
"Funky K." Kenny responded.

"His name is Kenny. We went of a long drop and he hit his head, making him think he's someone else," said Tom quickly.

"Why hasn't our scout told us he saw Sam yet!" roared the King,  
"Sire, if you would just have patience-" Ross sputtered,  
"PATIENCE? Patience? Why didn't we just use Luther instead of sending him to get killed! He's a professional Ross! A professional!" The King tried to lift a vase to throw at Ross but failed horribly and it dropped lazily to the ground, not even breaking. The King and Ross stared at it for a second then looked back to each other. The King tried to lift the vase again and just dropped it again. He and Ross just stared at it for second and looked back up. "Alright, if Sam doesn't report to the scout in 10 days. You will be publicly hanged by these wings!" screamed the King so loud that the slaves started to look in the door to see what was happening, "Ross, you and you neck better start praying on Sam's success."  
"Sir, I think you should calm down. The chances something happened to Sam are very slim, I mean, it's not like he was thrown into another dimension."  
"Do not try to calm me down!" roared the King, "now you might want to enjoy have your neck intact, because it's only got seven days left."  
"But sir, you said-"  
"Five days, Ross! Five days!"

Luther shook his head, his head and neck hurt horribly and his breathing was harsh and painful. He felt like a flaming arrow had gone right through his neck. He sighed, then he paused half way through the sigh, the air smelled like blood! _What happened?_ he thought. All of a sudden his brain pinged, the battle! He tried to get up, his legs were too weak to even get close to moving. He looked around desperately, no one. _But if no one is here who dragged me here_? he wondered blankly. He tried to get up again, not even a twitch from his legs came though. _What happened to me? Why does my neck hurt? Why can't I move anything but my head? Why am I not dead?_ he questioned himself. He tried moving his body again, nothing. He sighed. He just sat and waited for what seemed like hours. He tried to move his body parts again. A finger moved, _Yay!_ he thought. He tried again, his entire hand moved this time. He felt like screaming for joy. He waited another hour and tried again, this time his right arm moved. He put his hand on one of the spots on his neck that hurt. There was a bandage on each side of his neck. _Wait!_ he thought, _This is the treatment the amazing and _gorgeous_ medic Jo-Ann and her newly found way to get the arrow out of a neck. Wait a second, I HAD AN ARROW IN MY NECK!_ he screamed in his head. _That's what must have stopped me from being able to move. Jo-Ann told me specifically that the entire body but the head and neck shut down so the body has the strength to heal! _he thought to himself. _Damn I'm good._ He decided he should sleep because it was getting dark and he needed the strength. So he made a comfortable pile of leaves under his head with his working arm and fell asleep.

"Hey! I see an opening!" These words brought the entire group to life. All the chickens started murmur.

"We're free," said one.

"I hope this isn't the castle again," said another. They all walked out to the clearing.

"Oh my god it's Luther!" cried one of the soldiers, the medic ran over to him to check his pulse.

"He's alive!" yelled the medic joyfully, "He's just sleeping, which is what all of us badly need," the medic looked up, "My guess is it's near 11 o' clock right now. Men, let's get some sleep." Everyone nodded and followed Luther's and the medic's lead and made beds from the most comfortable things they could find and wordlessly fell asleep.

"We will need about 100 Gryphons sir that will take a lot of gold coins. You had better see if you can bargain with this man sir if you plan to get the amount we need."  
"Don't worry, we'll take two of those plated horse things-"  
"Um, lexals, sir," interrupted Sage,  
"Ah yes, lexals to carry the gold and about 50 men on horse back over Syron, of which I'll be leading. We'll be back in about one week. Until then, Sage, you'll be in charge."  
"I won't let you down sir!" said Sage. Winfield walked outside and looked out on the grounds, soldiers were scurrying everywhere to get ready for the day ahead. Winfield loved to watch the soldiers do this every morning, but as much as he loved watching his men run around while he schemes he knew he had to break the silence.

"Men!" everyone turned to see what Winfield had to say, "I will need 50 men to ride with me to Syron, you will need to be in the lightest riding clothes you have and have your weapons. We will try to make back here in a week and Syron is a long way away. You two!" he pointed to the two nearest men to him, "Get two lexals and load them with 10,000 gold coins each." They nodded and ran off to do as they were told. "But sir, that is at least three quarters of what we've manage to gather over the entire war and your planning to give it all away for things that are too powerful to be mastered by a human, no, 100 humans even."  
"Well Sage, last time I checked we had about 10,000 men here and reinforcements back at Elstac. It shouldn't be hard if all we need is 101 for to train each one," said Winfield laughingly.

_10_

_The Clan_

Sam, Tom, Kenny and Farmer trudged on through the never ending snow "See that smoke? That's where we are headed to." Farmer said this after what had felt like hours, but all the while the sun had stubbornly held its spot in the middle of the sky. "Does it ever get dark here?" asked Tom,  
"Only for an hour, around eleven at night," said Farmer without thought, "Are you sure you don't want any whiskey?" he asked as he pulled out a bottle from one of his many pockets.

"I'm sure… thanks anyway," said Sam very quickly so that no one else had time to answer. They trudged on for what felt like another hour before they reached they camp. "Farmer, how come you were so far out there when your camp is here?" asked Sam as the entered the camp.

"It's because the rest of the clan thinks all I'm doing to make ear shattering noises, so they made me try to make the farm out there."  
"I can see why," said Sam under his breath as they walked past a waking penguin rubbing his eyes.

"We'll go to The Circle, that's where everyone meets in the mornings and at night, it's also the meal place and meeting place, it's just about everything, are you positive?" he said holding out some whiskey, Sam just stepped back. When they reached what Farmer had called The Circle had about seven penguins, all looking very strange in many different ways.

One that had a very puny body and had glasses on that were the size of melons said, "Hey, Farmer. What do have with you? Oh wait, let me guess. They are Missairian male chickens, those two are brothers and that one is just a friend." He said pointing at each of them, getting it completely right. "That one's father is a General, and those kids' parents are both… co-managers for Padfoot ball teams… the Battle Ducks and the Flaming Feathers. His mother," he said, pointing at Sam, "Is just a house mom who makes sure everything gets done. All of them are about 17 years old and-"  
"Oh, shut up already!" said a penguin with flame-like eyes, he looked like he was about to burst in flames and fry right there.

"I completely agree for once," said a penguin with very large muscles and who was taller than the others, he was one of few who looked somewhat normal.

"Anyway, this is Sam, Tom and Kenny," said Farmer. Everyone said hi except the one with flaming eyes and one looked like he was undead.

The one with the muscles started to talk again, "Well hello Sam, Tom and Kenny and welcome to our camp. I'm MegaPenguin, the leader of this clan. This is FlamingPenguin," he pointed to the one with the flaming eyes, "This is NerdyPenguin," he pointed to the one who had huge glasses. "This is ZombiePenguin," he pointed to the dead looking one, "Here is SteelheadPenguin," He pointed to one who was making a dagger, like his name said, he had a steel head in the shape of a hammer, "This is SkaterPenguin," he pointed to one who had a hat on backwards and a skateboard in his hand. "This is PartyPenguin," he pointed to one who had a pair of headphones on and was humming a rock-and-roll song while wiggling his feet and had a shirt on that said, 'Party 'till I die' and showed a penguin dancing. "This is PowerPenguin," he pointed to one who was making a lighting bolt come out of his hand and disappear again. "And this, this is Bob." He pointed to a penguin that had absolutely nothing special about him. "He's new," whispered Mega. Bob waved. "And you already know Farmer here. There are a lot more of us, there just still sleeping or in their tent or doing something. Now I'll show you your tent, it's over here." He pointed towards a pile of wool material and some sturdy looking sticks, "We are going to put it together later today. And if your wondering Nerdy predicted your coming so we got that stuff together." said Mega.

Ross' head peeked around the corner of the main hall. As he ran down the corridor, a giant crate on wheels was being tugged down the hall by a human. In the crate was every last important thing to Ross that he owned. Over the past night he had planned to get out of this crazed city and on to Ettna. This was another city like Missair. It was full of chickens and turkeys, and as far as he was concerned there were plenty of jobs waiting to be taken. He had no family, so he had no care whatsoever about leaving. Since he had such a big job, he was stuck making the next battles' plans to have time to make any friends. _Here_, he thought, _I will get a good paying but low key job and meet friends and have a better life. And here no one will chop off my head or hang me_. He smiled at the thought of it, there was no overweight king to boss him around anymore. He was free!

The lexals stood tall, their silver bodies blindingly gleaming in the sun. lexals are horses, but they naturally grow a thick layer or a very strong metal-like substance all over the body. Their tails are made of thin strands of silver, so thin they are like string. They are able to carry up to 500 times their weight. (They weigh about 850 pounds fully grown.) They have been hunted for a long time for their armor skin until they have become so close to extinction that you would have a one and 500,000 chance of seeing one.  
"Every gold coin checked and accounted for," said Sage.

"Good, good. Okay, do not do anything 'till we get back. Well, except train the men some more and eat and breathe and…. What am I saying? You know what I mean," Winfield said stupidly. "Alright men, let's move out!" screamed Winfield to the 50 men waiting next to their muscled and well bred black, brown and white horses. Everyone jumped onto their horse and started to speed off. Sage stood watching till they were gone. "Oh, yeah! The fort is mine to control!"

Luther's eyes shot open. He looked around. He couldn't see anything, it was to dark. He guessed it was near midnight. _What will I do tomorrow, and the next day? Just starve? I'll never find the rest of the group. They must be millions of miles away by now!_ Luther thought to himself. He looked around again, hoping he would see something interesting to pass the time but he couldn't see anything, it was too dark. _This is going be a long night._ He thought as he lay down again on a pile of leaves.

Sam sprinted and jumped out onto the frost-bitten lake and skidded across to the middle. They had all decided to take a walk and show Tom, Kenny and Sam around. "Hey! Sam, is that ice solid?" called out Tom, "I'm not sure, hold on." Sam stamped his foot twice on the ice. "It's solid! Come on o-u-t!" Sam sputtered as he fell though a newly made hole in the ice. Tom, Kenny, Mega, Nerdy, Party, Angry, Skater Steelhead and Bob all ran over to him, only to find the ice was just as thin where they were all standing and they splashed into the water. Sam was the first to climb out, and then came Tom who was dragging Kenny by the leg. They waited trying to catch their breath and get warm. No one else came for a while. "Dude, they must have, like, died or something!" Kenny managed to say after a quick gasp of air. "Two things, _Funky K_. One, never say 'dude' anywhere near me." Tom took a breath, "Two, they aren't dead. I read about these things in the class library. They live near the water so they can get fish from it. Give it a second." said Tom. He was right, one minute later they saw the penguins jumping out of the water on gracefully landing on the side of the now shattered ice covered lake.

"How are they not cold?" asked Sam.

"Well, I didn't really pay attention to the book. I just remembered that little part," said Tom in the most innocent voice he could make.

"I shoulda' figured," breathed Sam.

The wind was roaring. Its sharp, unstoppable piercing felt like needles on their faces. Its screeches sounded like a blade hitting the metal of a shield. All the soldiers rode quickly, heads down, bodies forward, blades at hand. A loud roar came from above. "What was that?" yelled a soldier.

"It's just the wind," said another.

"No, look!" a soldier pointed up. There flew a gryphon 10 times the size of a human. It circled above like a vulture, deciding on its prey.

"Ride!" screamed Winfield. All at once they riders started racing along the path in hope to escape the gryphon. The gryphon screeched and swooped down. Its target screamed and ducked so that the gryphon just barely missed him. It flew back up, getting ready to dive again. This time at another, it swooped faster than before; its claws ripped the human flesh from its former owner. The person now with his shoulder missing screamed in pain and fell from his horse, only to get crushed by the stampeding of frothing horses. The gryphon, not happy with its small catch readied itself to dive one more time. This time, it dove at Winfield. Winfield turned around only in time to see the face of his murderer.

"What's that? Who's there?" Spike's head twisted back and forth.

"Calm down, we're okay," said Shadowback trying to calm Spike down.

"But we have no weapons," proclaimed Spike.

"Oh yes we do. See, after I fought the human. I knew that I would be caught. So I tossed my weapon away into the forest. If it landed where I saw it land, it should be right here." He pulled out a long glossy wood-like pole from the bushes. On each side of the pole were five sharp blades. Two of the blades pointed back, two pointed to the sides and one pointed straight.

"Wow, were did you get that?" asked Spike.

"I got this from the Warrior's Guild as present. It's made of the finest stainless steel and black dragon bone. I have brought it with me on every mission I have gone on," said Shadowback. They walked farther into what seemed to be and never ending abyss. Fog started to come in. "It's getting hard to see, we should find a place to stop for now. Otherwise we could be robbed by some forest centaurs without even knowing."

Then Spike said, "Look, there's a cave. Let's go in till the fog goes away." When they walked in, on the ground they saw a chicken skeleton with dripping blood still on it. Spike screamed and Shadowback jumped backwards. Spike started to running but quickly slipped in the blood and hit his head on a rock. "Spike? Spike? You okay?"

_11_

_The Gods_

The penguins were now walking in an ice-covered valley with Sam, Tom and Kenny, who had blankets on their backs. "So were are we headed now?" asked Sam.

"I saw this cave that opened up not long ago. It was a small quake or something," said Steelhead.

"Dude, let's go check it out!" said Kenny, Tom winced but said nothing. They all started to walk towards where Steelhead had said the cave was. They turned around a corner and saw an opening in the ice about 50 feet tall. "Wow, that's huge! And you said this just appeared a couple of weeks ago?" asked Mega.

"Days, actually."

"That is so weird. How does a cave of that size just appear out of nowhere from a tiny earthquake that couldn't be felt half a mile away," said Mega.

"I say, let's check it out!" said Party in a loud and annoying voice. They all nodded in agreement and started to walk into the cave.

"Like, whoa. It's like totally weird in here," said Kenny.

"Hey look it's a picture of a weird looking lighting bolt. And hey! There's a tornado! And there's a fireball, and a flood, and a, a… rock? That's so totally awesome," said Party.

"Well I hate it!" said Angry and smashed his hand against the picture. The roof started to shake and rocks started to fall.

"Now I see why it opened so easily," said Mega as he looked stupidly towards the ceiling. He watched as one headed straight for his head and started to run for his life to the opening in the cave to get out. Rocks covered the way out and boulders were now heading straight into the heads of the clan. "Help! Help! Nooooo!" screamed Sam as the stalagmites spread the innocent blood of the young.

Winfield got up on his feet while still on the horse and jumped high into the air, right over the unsuspecting gryphon's head on onto its back. Winfield squeezed his hands and the six golden blades came from his hands. He readied himself to stab when the gryphon turned its head to look at Winfield. Its eyes met with Winfield's and started to flare. In anger it started bucking in the air, Winfield stabbed one of his claws into the gryphon and dug it deep. The gryphon only got angrier and tried harder. Down below the soldiers had stopped and were cheering Winfield on, "Win-fi-eld!" they cheered. Winfield jabbed his other claw into the gryphon. All but his arms were being bounced up and down from the bucking of the gryphon. _I won't last much longer like this, I need to end him now,_ thought Winfield. Winfield pulled out one of his claws and dug it back in more towards the head of the gryphon. He climbed his way up until the reached the neck. By now the gryphon was bleeding way too much and would soon go unconscious. With the last of his strength Winfield pulled out his claw and readied to slit the throat of the gryphon. "Die!" Winfield screamed as he slid the claw along the throat, killing the gryphon instantly and blood went everywhere. The wings of the gryphon stopped beating the Winfield blanked out as he and the gryphon falling to their doom.

Spike woke up, "Shadow, Shadow you there?" There was no response. Spike looked to see if Shadow's weapon was there and it wasn't. Spike walked deeper into the cave, "Shadow!" He kept calling. To him it felt like he walked forever and turned hundreds of corners when he started to hear a noise. It sounded like breathing, but it was too hard and strained to be Shadow, with each long and deep breath the ground shook. When the noise seemed to come from around the corner Spike placed his back against the wall and inched his way to the corner. He looked there was Shadowback standing alone in a huge room. "Shadow!" Spike called.

"No, you idiot!" shouted Shadow angrily as the wall Shadow was next to started to moved. What had looked a like a line of rocks became a tail, what had looked like a wall became a body, what looked like stalagmites became wings and what looked like a carving became the head of a giant dragon. Its red eyes seemed to have fire in them as they looked at Shadowback. It stood at its full height and became a 60 foot tall black dragon. Its wings spread out to their full wingspan, which seemed to be over 100 feet each way, as is drew breath. Shadow's eye widened as a column of fire shot at him. He grabbed his weapon and dove out of the way. He readied himself as the dragon went on a full sprint with its mouth open at Shadow's height ready to dine weasel. At the last second Shadow jumped out of the way and as the dragon passed. As the dragon was still running by Shadow stuck out his hand and he disappeared in a blur as he hooked his arm around one of the tail spikes. The dragon stopped and looked back at the tiny creature climbing up its tail. It flicked its tail and Shadow hit a wall hard. He went limp. Spike screamed in terror as the dragon walked over the unconscious weasel. Shadow moved, "Yes!" Spike said out loud. Shadow got up and stood wobbly and looked into the eyes of his attacker, "You…will…pay……" Shadow said as he was crushed by the dragon's foot. Spike screamed again as he was Shadow's body get mutilated by the dragon. As soon as it was done it turned its head to Spike. The both stared at each other until Spike turned around the corner and started to run. The dragon fallowed quickly behind, slamming into the narrow halls and hitting down stalagmites with its head which was slowing it down. Through the many halls Spike ran before the dragon caught up. Spike could feel the breath of the monster. All of a sudden the breathing stopped. Spike looked back only to see a column of fire shooting towards him.

Luther woke up to a cracking noise. He opened his eyes to the noise came from a crackling fire with food on it! Next to the fire warming his wings was one of Luther's men! The medic appeared next to Luther when he noticed Luther stirring, "Don't move, wait at least another hour. You should know your lucky to be alive. Most would have died because of suffocation since I took a while to start the arrow removal process because we were under fire." Luther smile and tried to talk, but still couldn't. "You won't be able to talk for good day or two. We'll help you till then." the medic said. Luther frowned at this, _Oh man, I have to wait a full day with no talking. This is going to bite,_ thought Luther angrily.

Sam woke up. "Am I in heaven?" he said aloud. He heard some rocks crumble and saw Kenny there, "No! This must be the other place!"  
"No you idiot. You alive, we all are. Some how we weren't hurt." said Tom

"Oh, I can explain that! It's quite simple. We were saved by the-"  
"Shut up Nerdy." said Mega, "The simple fact is that we are stuck because the way out is caved in. All we can do is head deeper into the cave. Steelhead, maybe you could break the rocks that are blocking the way out."  
"That's a no can do. These rocks are way to big, even for me."  
"Well then just get the others out from the rocks." Steelhead walked over to a pile of rocks and smashed some with his head. The rocks rolled away and Party appeared. Sam watched the others get themselves out. Rocks melted and there was FlamingPenguin. Zombie walked over, his head and his left arm was missing.

Words started coming out of his neck, "Could you hand me my arm and head, please?" Kenny picked up Zombie's hand, "¡Dios mio¡Esto repugna¿Qué el infierno¡Yo no puedo hablar íngles! (Oh my god! That's disgusting! What the hell? I can't speak English!)" sputtered Kenny. Everyone looked at him and Zombie took his hand and it mended itself.

"Does anyone know what just happened to Kenny and what language he's speaking?" asked Sam.

"Well, no. Maybe someone back at camp does, but until then we won't be able to understand him." Mega said sadly. Rocks flew out everywhere and Power stood in their place.

Skater flew out from behind a pile of rocks, "This is a mad ramp man!" he said. "Hey, could I have a little help here?" Bob yelled from under some rocks. Power threw the rocks off him and there stood the whole group, perfectly fine.

"Let's go," said Mega. Everyone headed deeper into the ice covered cave.

"¿Qué¿Así que usted acaba de salir mí como esto? Esto no es fresco, los tipos. ¡Usted no me puede salir como esto¡Venga en¿Por favor? Usted tipos chupan... (What? So you're just going to leave me like this? This is not cool, guys. You can not leave me like this! Come on! Please? You guys suck...)" Everyone started to walk deeper into the cave.

After a long while of walking, Skater asked, "What was that?"

"What was what?" asked Power. Everyone stopped when what Skater heard became louder, everyone looked to Nerdy.

"For once, I don't know." admitted Nerdy. "Let's just keep going." As they went the noise became clearer, it was a growling. Another growling started, then another.

"It sound like there are lots of what ever it is." said Mega. The reached a room with a giant orb that looked like a snow globe. They couldn't tell what was inside of it. They looked in awe, "That thing is at least 200 feet tall!" said Nerdy.

"Um, guys. By chance is there a FuzzywolflikePenguin is your clan?" asked Sam.

"No, why?"

"Because there is something very fuzzy in front of me and it looks very angry." whimpered Sam.

"That, would be a blue wolf. Only, it's a little bigger than usual. Hey, look another one, and another one. Whoa, there's a whole room full!" said Nerdy.

"Nerdy?" asked Mega quietly, as if a ghost was in front of him.  
"Yes?"  
"Do these eat penguins?"  
"Yeah, why?"  
"Because, they look hungry."  
"Oh no…" All at once the wolves charged.

"ATTACK!" screamed Mega as everyone charge with their power or weapon. Sam started to shoot his arrows into the swarm of rabid dogs and Tom and Kenny followed his lead. Wolf blood went everywhere as the animals fought for their lives, "GIVE THEM EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT!" screamed Mega over the sound of the death cries. "¡Muérale espumando pelotas de piel, muere! (Die you foaming fur balls, die!)" roared Kenny as he fired an arrow the went straight through a wolf and into another. Zombie bit a wolf and it turned into a zombie wolf. Zombie got on it and used it to make more zombie wolves. Flaming shot his fire into the wolves and the wolves fell hard to the ground, burned to death. While Mega went melee and Skater started to hit wolves with his skateboard. Power threw lighting bolts into the wolves while Party played his speakers so loud the wolves with their sensitive ears started to shriek with pain. Hammerhead was pounding wolves with his head, he seemed unstoppable.A wolf jumped onto Skater, Sam dropped hit bow and charged the wolf with his father's sword. He swung three times and had four slices of wolf sitting in front of him.

"Whoa little man, your good. I'll take the bow, you use your sword." Sam nodded and turned to the wolves and saw one pouncing straight at him he stuck his sword and closed his eyes.

Ross walked into a small shop. Inside was a rooster covered in black smudges hammering at a sword. He looked up from the glowing hot sword, "Why, hello there! What can I do for ya'?" asked the blacksmith, "Well," Ross rubbed his hand behind his head, as if to say he wanted something but was to embarrassed to ask, "Well, I was wondering if I could learn to become a blacksmith."  
"Well, son. Have you any experience?"  
"No."  
"So, you're starting from scratch, huh?"  
"Well, yeah."  
"Okay then. What was yer' job befer' this?"  
"I worked as the strategist for the King at Missair. He was a little hard on me, so… I left." Ross shrugged.

"That's too bad. Well, let's test yer' strength first. Come here." Ross walked over to the area where the blacksmith stood. The blacksmith handed Ross his gloves, "Try smashin' this hammer on this here sword." Ross pulled back the hammer and smashed the sword. A red hot dent appeared where the hammer hit. "Wow, yer' not bad fer' a beginner. Well son, ye' got a name?"  
"Ross,"  
"Well, nice to meet you Ross, the name's Daniel, but the people 'round 'ere call me Danny." They shook hands, "Now, let's teach ye' how to smith."

Everything was blurry, too blurry to tell what was going on. He was moving, fast. Green blurs flew by on both sides of him. A repeating grunting noise and a loud thud every split second. As soon as everything came back to him, so did the pain. Winfield shot up and grabbed his left arm, he felt his hand get wet. He glanced at his arm, on the back of his arm was one of the gryphon's talons. Winfield looked around to find that he his legs were strapped to the back of his horse and all of his men were riding around him. He heard a cawing sound, he looked up. There flew many powerful looking gryphon. He watched as one swooped down into a pile of rocks that was once a beautiful city. The gryphon came back up with a screaming man in his mouth. _This… is definitely Syron,_ thought Winfield as they neared the gates. Everyone stopped, "Everyone!" yelled some one from the front, "This is very dangerous and not all of us with live through it. So, everyone be ready with your bows, arrows and swords because this will be a long fight. Oh, Winfield is awake! Winfield, we are here. Make the call on what to do."

Winfield sat up, looked around and cleared his throat, "Well. Looks like everyone here knows the situation. I know that you're all thinking that this will be a free for all. Well, you're all right, and wrong. If some one is taken by one of the gryphon then he is gone. But, if a gryphon is _about_ to attack a fellow, then try to protect him at all costs. We are all men of the fabulous human race. If we die this is over, the human's history is done, gone. As if we never existed. Is that what you want?" screamed Winfield.

"NO, sir!" screamed all the soldiers is unison.

"Well then, there is an abandoned castle in the middle of the city. Ride your horses into the castle and take cover. The first to get there get your bows out and cover the rest. Follow me!" The ground shook as all the horses charged forward into the mass of man-eating gryphons.

Spike shot up, he was sweating. He looked around and thought, _How am I alive?_ Then he realized he was back at the entrance to the cave. "It was all a dream. Hey, it was all a dream!" Spike said aloud happily. "Hey, Shadow, guess what, I had the strangest dre-" Spike trailed off as he realize Shadow wasn't there, neither was Shadow's weapon. "Oh no. The dream was real! The dream was real!" Spike screamed as he got up and ran down the cave. It was exactly as it was in his dream. As he turned the last turn he was back in the room from his dreams, and Shadow was there, "Shadow, RUN!"

A strange screeching noise came from the wolf, Sam opened his eyes and looked to see he had struck his sword all the way to the hilt into the wolf. He pulled it out and the wolf fell silently to the ground.  
After the battle, Sam looked around to see that by some miracle, no one had been hurt but Skater, who had a couple of scratches on his chest. "Wow, how is it we just killed that many wolves without getting hurt?" asked Sam, everyone looked at Nerdy again.

"Now would be a good time for one of your endless explanations," said Angry.

"Well, actually, we just defied everything I know. So, what I'm saying is, I have no idea." said Nerdy as he shrugged.

Kenny started dancing around, spinning around on the ice and twisting his hips, "Ah, sí. Mecimos. Ningunos pollos para la cena esta noche, usted perros estúpidos. Ajá. Ajàyo poseo. (Oh, yeah. We rocked. No chickens for dinner tonight, you stupid dogs. Uh-huh. Uh-huh, I own.) This caused everyone to shrug, since they had no idea what he was saying.

"I wonder what that glass ball is," said Tom, looking at the giant orb in the center of the hall.

"Looks like a snow globe. Dude, what's that inside?" said Party.

"Well, I say we find out," sighed Sam as he pulled out his sword and started jogging towards the globe, then he started running until he got onto a full on sprint. He leaped towards the globe and slashed down upon it with the sword and everything went red, then white, and finally yellow.

"So, do you know how te' hold a hammer?"

"Well, no," sighed Ross, "I've never had a chance. So, does this mean we're going to start all the way from the beginning?"

"Well, I guess so. Well, you hold a hammer like this," Danny picked up a hammer and pointed to the way he was holding. "Now you try," said Danny as he handed a hammer to Ross, "That's pretty dern' perfect if I do say so me'self. You'll make a great apprentice. Now, here's how ya' hit something with it." He hit a hot sword that he had been working on, it bent to the will of the hammer, "You try, oh, and uh, hit it here." Danny pointed to a spot and Ross smashed it, "Whoa, don't it too hard. You lose durability and the sword will break too quickly. People wouldn't want to come here if we had bad swords. Now, try it here," Danny pointed again, "'cept a little less strength." Ross sighed and hit the sword lighter and it bent into the perfect shape for a sword, "Now that, that is the perfect sword. Here, now let's go heat up some iron for your new hammer!" smiled Danny, Ross looked at him and smiled back as they walked into the back room.

Winfield flew through the town with his men all around him. He looked to the air as every gryphon seemed to notice them all at the same time and all swooped down for something to eat. "READY!" screamed Winfield as everyone pulled out their bows and arrows, "AIM!" cried Winfield as every one notched their and pulled them back, aiming at the oncoming gryphons, "FIRE!" shouted Winfield as his last command as the sky blackened with arrows. Winfield waited and heard gryphons' cries so he turned to the skies and watched dead gryphons fall through the hundreds of arrows still going up. A gryphon fell next to Winfield and another in front of him, which his horsed jumped with ease. Winfield looked at the sky again as a gryphon swooped toward him. He pulled out his bow and shot the gryphon in the shoulder but its determination overcame its pain. It grabbed Winfield's horse by the neck and twisted his own neck around so that Winfield's horses neck broke and it died instantly. Winfield flinched when he heard the deafening crack, then he clenched his fist and his spikes and jumped onto the gryphon and sliced its neck open and it fell to the ground. Right before it smashed into the ground Winfield jumped off and landed on the ground. He turned around and saw what remained of his men stampeding towards him, he started to sprint the opposite direction until the horses were running all around him, he looked around and spotted a horse who's rider had died and he ran to it, hooked his arm around its neck and slung himself up onto it. He looked around and saw four of his men picked up by gryphons and thrown by a simple twist of neck 300 feet away to their death. Another gryphon charged him as he pulled out his sword and cut its head off. "Hey! There it i-!" cried a soldier in happiness but he was cut off but sharp talons into the back of his head. Winfield started to spur his horse more and more as more gryphons charged him. He took out his bow again and shot three arrows into the chest of a gryphon and it fell quickly to the ground. At the last shot he entered the castle and relaxed as a most of his men entered with him. "Hey! Look, a man is out there!" cried a soldier as he pointed out at a lone soldier who wasn't under Winfield's command cutting off the heads of one gryphon after another, his horse reared and he fell to the ground, his horse tried to run was quickly killed but the man kept fighting off one gryphon after another as Winfield watched in amazement. The man kicked a gryphon in the face with his spike shoes, "Duck!" called Winfield as a gryphon charged him from behind. The man jabbed his sword into the ground and pushed himself off of it into the air where he did a back flip onto the oncoming gryphon. As the gryphon he was on flew by his sword he pulled it up, readying himself for the next couple of gryphons. He spurred the gryphon with his boots and steered it towards a group of gryphons. Right as the other gryphons were about to claw him apart, he jumped off the gryphon and the other gryphons tore it apart. He started to fall through the air but he pulled out a strange hook like thing and shot it at the nearest gryphon, the arrow like thing with a chain attaching it to the thing the man held clung onto the side of a gryphon and pulled him towards it. He grabbed on and spurred it towards the ground and where Winfield was. The gryphon screeched and went headfirst into the roof of the marble building. Everyone below stayed silent and waited. Above the heard screeches and the sound of a sword which was followed by a blood curdling splash as a sword cut through the neck of the gryphon, and then after a minute of waiting the mysterious man jumped down from above and the second he did all the soldiers flinched except Winfield who stood with a grimacing smile stretched along his thin cheeks.

Shadow looked up to see Spike yelling something to him, but he couldn't tell what, "RUN! THERE'S A DRAGON IN HERE!" shouted Spike frantically.

"There's a what in here?" said Shadow confused.

"THERE'S A DRAGON!" screamed Spike, now jumping up and down, waving his arms. The wall started to shift and rumble, Spike slapped his forehead and started to sprint towards Shadow, who stood watching the wall move, holding his weapon tightly so that his knuckles whitened. Spike ran next to Shadow and grabbed his hand, pulling him towards the exit, "What's happening?" asked Shadow to no one in particular.

"That's not a wall, it's a dragon, and it's not a happy one. Before you ask, I saw it in a dream now run!" Shadow didn't ask any more questions and started to run with him into the halls. The walls started to shake and stalactites started to fall down on Spike and Shadow. They neared the entrance when the shaking grew louder and stronger until the dragon was right behind them, roaring in all of his might. Shadow heard the dragon take and huge intake of air and he pushed Spike to the side just in time to dodge the pillar of flames that burned all in its wake. Shadow stood up and helped Spike up, but when they were both standing they froze to the feeling of burning breath on their backs.

The strange flashes slowly faded and when they seemed they were about to stop they started flashing red, then white, then brown, then yellow again and then finally stopped. "Whoa, what the heck was that?" questioned Party, almost laughingly.

"Well, I don't really know, I think it was, Wowwwww…" sighed Nerdy in admiration. Everyone turned to see what he was looking at and saw that where the glass orb had been stood four massive figures, one looked like a tornado with arms of tornados and a face. Another looked like many massive boulders put together to form a giant human person, whose eyes were red and unhappy looking and he had a mouth with sharp arrow heads as teeth, it smiled at them. Another looked like a tower of fire that had arms, legs and face with big, black eyes. The tallest and most powerful looking one looked like it was five lightning bolts put together to make arms, legs, a torso and a head. All of their heads reached the top of the cave. The lightning bolt stepped forward, causing everyone below the shrink back, except Sam who stood with his feet locked to the ground.

"What are you doing?" hissed Tom quietly, "They'll kill you!" Sam ignored him to see what these things had to say.

"Thank you!" boomed the lightning bolt, "For freeing us from this prison. We," the lighting's voice echoed the cave, shaking it vigorously, "are they gods of the elements. That is the god of wind, Vortain," he pointed to the tornado. "That is the earth god, Gravail." He pointed to the rock golem. "That is the fire god, Infernus." He pointed to the flames, "And I am the lighting god, Illumini," he pointed to himself.

"Well, uh. Hi?" said Sam, wondering what he should be doing in the presence of gods.

"Wait a second! There are five elemental gods! And how did you, the most powerful beings in the universe get captured like this?" questioned Nerdy without fear. "Well, first of all. The water god, Geyserm, has turned evil. He is the one who captured us here," sighed Illumini disgracefully.

"What! Why would the powerful and graceful Geyserm who has granted us our ice covered home become evil?" cried out Mega as if he had just been deeply insulted. "Well, that would part of the reason he went evil. You see, he has always had a yearning for power. And he figured the best way to get that power was to become the only god. He did it by capturing us in a block of ice one by one and placed us all in this unbreakable from the inside orb with those wolves so we would be stuck there. If you're wondering the reason you were not hurt when you were fighting them and when the cave collapsed was because we managed to get some magic through the orb to help you. Now, for rescuing us we would like to present you with gifts," said Illumini as he stepped back, letting Vortain step forward.

"Tom," roared Vortain, "for your skills with knives, I grant you these knives with the speed and power of my winds behind them. They will always return to you after they have slain the enemy of which you sought." A bundle of knives tightly wrapped in white silk with a tornado patched on appeared in Tom's hands.

"Thank you, your honor for such and amazing gift. I will use them well," thanked Tom as he bowed. Vortain nodded and stepped back, letting Infernus step forth.

"Kenny, because of your lack of ability to do well at anything, I give you this bow that is more accurate than anyone could be after 20 years of practice, and every arrow you shoot will burst into flames when it hits its target." The bow appeared above Kenny but he didn't notice it and it fell on his head, knocking him to the ground. Kenny picked them up and stood up, "Muchas gracias, su honor, yo hago-(Thank you very much, your honor. I will-)" Illumini snapped his lightning fingers, "use them- Hey! I can speak normal again! Thank so much! Ha ha ha ha!" Kenny started to prance around the room dancing but slipped on the ice and fell hard.

"You know what they stay, the stupider you are, the harder you fall," sighed Infernus.

"No they don't!" exclaimed Sam.

"Well… they should." Infernus sighed again and stepped back to let Gravail step forth.

"MegaPenguin, for your skills in leadership and your strength, I grant you this stone war hammer crafted by me, myself. It is very light for the one person it is meant for and is impossible to carry for any other being. It can crush anyone or anything at anytime. With it you shall rule without objection." The hammer landed in Mega's hand. He looked at it and looked at the emblem on the side to see there was an iron fist engraved, it held the same hammer he was holding. Mega bounced it up and down on his palm and then swung it around a couple of times, it cut through the air like a sword.

"Thank you, my lord. I will use this weapon to rule wisely and kindly over my people. For it I am honored," Mega bowed and hooked the hammer to his backpack. Illumini stepped forward again, "And for you Sam, I grant this horn that once blown will call upon me one time when you are in need. I also grant the ability to wield your sword like lightning and I grant you this potion of which I will not tell you what it is but when you think the time is right, drink it and all will become well." The potion appeared in Sam's hands and he hugged it tightly, as one would if protecting a newborn baby.

"Thank you, my lord. I will follow your instructions," said Sam humbly.

"Now, as for the rest of you penguins, I will personally see to it that we get you a new icy home after we lock up Geyserm. Tomorrow I will come to your camp, but not as you see me now, for the other penguins can not know what I look like. Wait for me then." As Illumini finished his sentence he and the other gods disappeared in a swirl of mist.

_12_

_Meeting Up an Old Friend_

"So, why would a bunch of badly trained soldiers come to Syron?" asked the person with no fear.

"What kind of man are you to talk to the man who is the general of the human rebellion?" asked Winfield who still stood tall, hand on the hilt of his bloodied black sword.

"You?" laughed the man, "You are General Winfield? _The _General Winfield who has fought off the animals for four years and has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of animals without mercy?"

Winfield laughed at his surprise, "Yes, yes I am. And I would like to appoint you a sergeant in my army for your display of swordsmanship. Will you except?"

"A sergeant? Well, old friend, I am happy that you have finally noticed my skills with the sword, even though you don't like lady fighters. I will accept," the person smiled. The person took off its helmet, revealing locks of golden-blonde hair that fell to the person's shoulders, and it also revealed the beautiful face, then the person took off her armor, which clunked to the ground heavily, and revealed a beautiful women in a blue and gold lined silk shirt and dress. Her rose red cheeks and her deep blue eyes made everyone in the room fall in love.

"A lady!" a soldier gasped.

"Amanda? Is that really you? Wow, has age done nothing to you over the past 15 years? I mean, look at you! You look like you only 17!" said Winfield, who was unable to hold back a smile of which eased the soldiers. Winfield, without thinking, went to Amanda and hugged tight. Amanda was caught by surprise but quickly hugged back and kissed Winfield on the cheek.

When they stepped back from each other Amanda said, "Yep, it's me. And yes, I am only 19. Or, at least my body _thinks _that. You would be amazed what the herbs around here can do. When the gryphons destroyed my home I was forced to live of the plants I found growing around and I just happen to eat this one plant that kills off a couple of months of what you lived. And, naturally, since I was out of food and I had just found the first edible plant I started to live off of it and eventually I found out I was becoming younger. And eventually I found this storage of food that was frozen and being saved in case Syron was attacked. Of course the people who put it there never lived to eat it. Also, in this castle I found the kings armory and stable, which is where I keep my pets." Amanda's voice was sweet and soothing, making everyone feel tired and happy, Amanda then winked which caused Winfield to smile even more, he felt in love with her all over again.

"So, Amanda. The real reason I came here, business." When Winfield said this Amanda's expression saddened.

"Alright, follow me," sighed Amanda as he turned and walked into the castle with helmet under her arm. Winfield and his men followed. As they went deeper and deeper into the castle a cawing sound grew louder and louder. _The gryphons, such beautifully powerful creatures. All the more reason to control them, _thought Winfield. They turned on last turned down the stone halls and there Winfield saw what seemed to be at least 100 gryphons screeching in their stables. "Look around, enjoy yourselves and don't worry, they don't bite," said Amanda as she kept walking and into another room, Winfield, as curious as he was, followed quietly behind. Through many more torch-lit hall they walked before a humming noise and a occasional roar became clear. As Winfield turned a hall a blinding light struck his eyes like an arrow, Winfield instantly stuck his arm over his eyes to shield them from the light and he slowly kept walking. As soon as his eyes adjusted he let his arm down and saw his was in a room with its walls, its floor and its ceiling made of mirror, and in the center of the roof was a well size hole in which light shone through and something that reflected the light onto the mirrors which caused the light to bounce around off the mirrors. The thing in the middle was too bright to tell what is was for Winfield, but what ever it was it had gold colored scales, a tail, wings, claws, legs, a long neck and a long head, "A dragon!" breathed Winfield.

"Re aktken tdepse rtya fsepopt ghaternok sle frak yebna hagloshnam!" growled the dragon.

"What in the gods' names did he just say?" blurted Shadowback.

"He said, 'You have trespassed in my domain, but I am will to spare you because you have a scent about you that confuses me, in a good way,'" said a voice from the dark.

"Who are you? And how can you understand the dragon?" yelled Shadow into the darkness.

"I am one who would help you. And that is not 'the dragon!'" said the voice as if he had been insulted, "That, that is Serkvoghaternok, or in our language, 'King of the Domain.' He is the leader and the last of the Sky Knights, of who I bet you have heard of in many tales, but he prefers being called Serk. And I, I am the last remaining Dragon Priest, Katvozaron, or in our language, 'Cat of the Dragons.' But you can call me Zaron." A cat with a white stomach with tan and white strips along his back, stepped forward from the darkness, "And you must be Prince Shadowback and Hedgehorn, from the prophecy," stated Zaron. "You are both in a prophecy. The prophecy says that the prince of Theerandor will meet up with a hedgehog and later they will both befriend the Gostvoklater, or the Sage of the Revolution, who will lead the attack the end the war. I can tell you the rest if you wish," finished Zaron.

"Yes please," begged Shadowback.

"As you wish."

Sam, Tom, Kenny and all of the penguins trudged back to the camp, all unable to get the thought of what had just happened out of their heads. Once in the camp everyone muttered a form of goodnight and walked to their tents. Sam, Tom and Kenny all found that when they went to where the tent stuff was lying earlier three tents stood tall and well build. Everyone again muttered goodnight and walked into their tents and laid down on their beds, tired from not having had any sleep since Old Man Sam's. As Sam was about to fall asleep a strange whizzing noise woke him up again. Curious, Sam walked out of his tent and saw that he was the only one to have heard it. He shrugged and started to walk back into his tent when he heard, "Hello Sam." He recognized the voice, it was soft, sweet and caring, it was, "Mary?" blurted Sam as he turned around and to his dismay, it wasn't. It was some sort of bird covered in black and dark blue clothes that hid everything but its eyes. "Be quiet, you find out everything soon, just follow me and don't ask any question until I say it's okay to," hissed the bird. Sam nodded and followed the figure into the darkness. They hiked up a tall, snow covered hill a stopped at its peek.

The person started to remove the clothes that hid its face and revealed the face of, Mary! "Mary! How? Where? Why? How?" question Sam quickly.

"Did I say it was okay to question yet?" said Mary in her soft voice as she closed in on Sam and pulled him towards him and kissed him. "Now, it is okay to question me," sighed Mary as she pulled herself back from Sam. "And before you ask, I was trained by the Warriors Guild in the art of stealth, and, actually I was taught with Shadowback, the prince of Theerandor. He, too has mastered the art of stealth. That's why I wasn't here in 6th or 7th grade. I was being trained in Theerandor. The reason I'm here, I volunteered my self as the guardian of this mission. Who you ask? The Dragon Priest of course. He holds meetings for the chosen ones, chosen by the half Dragon Priest who disguised himself as a stealth teacher. Half you ask? The High Council of the Dragon Priests were murdered before he was dubbed a Dragon Priest. So when I told you I will always be near, I wasn't just saying that. I have been following you all this way, even through the portal, it is my holy meaning to do this, if I fail I will have failed the gods and be banished from what remains of the Council. But you can not tell _anyone _that I am here. _Anyone!_"

Mary paused, but then this time Sam pulled her to him and kissed her, while saying, "I'm so happy to see you!" A strange noise came from behind Sam as they kissed and then Mary pushed Sam to the side and in less then a second pulled put her two swords and stabbed two different blue wolves who had ice goblins riding them. The wolves slumped over dead and the 7 foot tall blue goblins, who only wore a loin cloth around their waste and had a belt full of junk, had a long nose and were very skinny and muscular, jumped from the wolves and pulled out their weapons, a wooden staff and a spiked club. Sam pulled out his sword and stood next to Mary. The long nosed, half naked creatures started muttering something, "Sam, their using magic, move!" screamed Mary as a blue beam shot towards them from the wooden staff the goblin held. "Go!" yelled Mary as she charged one goblin while Sam went at the other. Sam's blade whizzed through the air around the goblin who frantically tried to find out where Sam's blade was going to be next. "Atslo'kall!" screamed Mary as she turned into a blur and then when the blur had faded, in its place stood four Marys, three of them illusions. They all charged and started to circle the magic making goblin until they became a blur around him. He started to shoot beams at the Marys but kept missing. All of a sudden Mary lunged out of the blur with her swords at hand but the goblin saw her coming and shot her with a blue beam, which caused Mary to disappeared, but then the goblin fell over dead, dropping his staff. Behind where the goblin had stood, Mary stood holding a blade with white blood covering it.

Sam lunged into the air and swung his sword but the goblin blocked it and he took a swing but Sam ducked under it and attempted to upper-cut with his sword but it was dodged, but it left a scratched on the goblin's nose which caused him to roar angrily. He started to thrash out at Sam and knocked him to the ground. The goblin pulled back his club, readying to strike, Sam closed his eyes, but after a couple of second passed he opened them again and saw Mary standing there, holding the still living goblin up by the sword that she had jabbed deep into its side. She smiled and pulled it out, letting the goblin drop to the cold ground and she held a hand out to Sam and helped him up. "You're a pretty good fighter, Sam," commented Mary.

"I, I, I just killed some one!" Sam studdered.

"Don't think of it like that, think of it as giving them new life."

Sam nodded and said, "You are amazing. Where did you learn magic?"

"The same place I learned all of my fighting skills, Theerandor." Sam nodded in appreciation. "Sam, if I am spotted by some one in your group or I show myself to your group, I will be known as Sye. And I will be a boy to them, so we can't be doing anything, or act like we know each other. Okay?" said Mary as she started to walk with Sam back to the camp.

"Sure thing, _Sye_. I hope to see you soon." Sam and Mary hugged and departed.

"Where the hell is Ross!" roared the King in anger.

"I don't know sire, we searched his house and all of his food was gone and what seemed to be all of his personal items. We believe he's run away," shivered a servant, who not once looked at the King.

"Well then, find him! I want him back here by no shadow time or I'll hang you in his stead!" said the King angrily. The servant yipped and sprinted down the hall. "I lose all of my servers that way," sighed the King.

The magnificent creature kneeled its head down the to Amanda's level and let itself be pet by her, "Hello, Taka," smiled Amanda, "How are you doing? I missed you. You want to stretch and get something to eat?" said Amanda as she slid her hand along the smooth golden scales. The dragon nodded and Amanda muttered, "Buto." When she did the roof started to shift and then started to slid to the side, leaving an opening large enough for the dragon to fly out. Amanda pet it one last time and stepped back, "Now I need to get back to Winfield, he was a good friend of mine. We've known each other since we were kids. You would like him, he's a nice man, but when it comes to fighting he knows no mercy. So, he's got your fighting style." Amanda started to walk back to the hallway back but stopped when she noticed Winfield, "Oh, Winfield." Amanda started to rub the back of her neck, then walked up to him and turned around to watch the dragon take off. "She's beautiful, huh? I found her egg deep down in this castle, frozen so it would be preserved. I found it and hatched it. Her name is Takavolera, or The Golden One. I just call her Taka. She lives down here and feeds on the wild gryphons for food. The room is made of mirrors so that if an enemy were to come in here it would be blinded, giving Taka plenty of time to snatch up whomever or whatever it was and kill it. I've gotten used to it, so it doesn't bother me."

"You do know how much the humans need a creature like this right? I mean, we would be unbeatable if we had a dragon on our side, and since your now in our ranks, we will have it on our side, right?" question Winfield.

"Well, I don't know. If Taka were to die it would be a terrible loss to me and I don't know what I would do, I mean, being with her is the only thing that has kept me sane all these years. And besides, I would ride her if she even was going to be in the war." They paused and watched as Taka planted her legs in the ground, causing her leg muscles to pop out, and with a powerful leap she shot into the air and at the peak of her jump she spread out her long wings and took off to hunt for her meal.

"Yes, of course you would. You are my friend and as that I wouldn't take something like this from you. I will ride your best gryphon. _You_, will ride Taka and help us to victory." Amanda smiled, but didn't seem convinced. "I won't make you do anything, but it would change our odds of winning this war. I'm going to go back to my men, you coming?" Amanda nodded and looked up out the roof and watched as a gryphon flew low over the open roof, screeching, and quickly behind was Taka with an open mouth. Amanda laughed, said buto to close the roof, and turned to follow Winfield back to the stables.

"The Sage of the Revolution has already started his journey. He is on his way and on his way he will stop here, which is where you will meet him. From there he will have already gotten a force of around 500, plus, he has one of the best fighters from my council. From then he will be accompanied by you two, me, Serk and the men he has with him and you will go and meet with another force of a little lower than 1,000. Then, he will meet with another, very large force of around 7,000. Then the siege will start, but on the third day of the siege another force will come to your aid. And with the help of these forces you will end the war and peace will befall this land once again." Shadow waited, seeing if Zaron had more to say, but he didn't.

"Do you know what these forces will be?" question Shadow.

"The prophecies can only tell so much. The forces are unknown until they have arrived. Now, you two are to stay here until the Gostvoklater has arrived. Until then, I will teach you to understand dragon tongue," stated Zaron, as if to say, 'you're staying and you're going to like it.' Spike eagerly stood up, ready to learn.

_13_

_Back to the Real World_

The next morning Sam woke up, his eyes were fogged up so it was hard to see. He rubbed them but when they wouldn't defog he started to rub them frantically, hoping it would clear his vision. He rubbed for what seemed like a long while, and when he finally got it he walked outside. It had obviously snowed in the night because there was a new soft coat of snow blanketing the ground. Every step Sam took towards The Circle his body sunk into the ground as if the snow were quicksand, which cause him to sink down to waist level in snow. He started to wade through it with his arms, and found Tom and Kenny's tracks and he noticed that the closer he got to The Circle, the thinner the snow got. Around him he saw that the snow had already been stamped down by many feet, which cause Sam to look to the sky and see the sun was already near its peak. With this in mind Sam started to spring until he arrived at The Circle and saw that every penguin in the clan had already arrived at The Circle. Sam pushed his was through the crowd and found Kenny, Tom, Mega and a couple of other penguins from the other day talking with a animal in very thick clothing, so you were unable to see its face. _That must be Illumini, _thought Sam as he joined them in conversation. The man held a very fragile looking glass ball that seemed to have a strange blue liquid that every couple of seconds seemed to turn solid, but then it would quickly go back to a liquid form. _Wow, that's awesome,_ thought Sam.

"Oh, hello Sam. You remember him." Mega said as he pointed to man and winked. Sam smiled and nodded. "Anyway, I see you've taken care of Geyserm. So, what is that and how does it work?" questioned Mega.

"Well, I'm going to, with the help of the other gods, clear out every living thing from this place to the other world and destroy this world and the link between this world and the other. I'm going to make sure every animal from this world is found a new home, which brings me to that orb. Some of Geyserm's magic is trapped in there. It a very fragile so if it breaks it gone. What you do is when you have found the place you want, you will place the orb gently on the ground and with the hammer Gravail gave you, smash it and the area within two square miles will be covered in snow and will become a permanently icy climate. Nothing but our magic could reverse it." Illumini handed Mega the orb, "Now," he paused and looked to the sky, when the sun is at its peak a portal will open here in The Circle. Have all the penguins here take everything of theirs and go through the portal. Show them this parchment, they will then believe you and follow you through. But, the Clan has a mission, or destiny you might say, to fulfill. You must find that out on your own, for if I tell you I might change the course of history. Now I leave you. Sam, when you most need me, you know what to do." Illumini handed Mega the paper and started to walk away, then disappeared, causing the penguins to gasp.

"My friends," boomed Mega as he turned to the penguins in the crowd, "do not be alarmed. That was… uh… a prophet. He has foretold that the gods are going to destroy this world and send the living things to another. A portal will be opened when the sun reaches its peak. Gather everything, the tents, the food, the personal belongings, everything and be back here right before the sun is at its peak. Now go!" screamed Mega which caused the penguins to disperse to get their things. Then Mega turned back to Sam, Tom and Kenny, "Now, you had better get ready also. For I have some strange feeling you have something to do with this whole… destiny thing," muttered Mega as he walked off to get his stuff.

"How long have you guys been awake?" asked Sam.

"About three or four hours. You must have fought pretty hard the other day, 'cause man, you still look tired," said Tom.

"Yeah, I couldn't sleep last night. I'll be alright though. Let's get our stuff," yawned Sam as they walked back to the tents.

Luther got up on to his knees and started to writhe in pain, and quickly fell back down. The medic quickly got up and ran to Luther, "Please, sir, for your own sake, don't try to move until you are able to talk. That will be the sign that you are able to move well again." Luther sighed and leaned against a tree. _Wow, this has been an eventful day. Let's see, I have wiggled my hand, I have moved my legs with only a lot of pain and sat here with a medic lecturing me. Good fun, _thought Luther as the medic came with some water and handed it to Luther, who took it and drank it gratefully. As Luther drank the medic watched him carefully. _Why is he staring at me like that? _thought Luther.

The medic seemed to read his thoughts, "I am seeing that your body is healing correctly and seeing if your throat is doing okay, which it seems to be." The medic stood up, "I'll let you be," and with that he walked off to be with the others.

"So, are you going to force me to pay for these when you're joining the force anyway?" questioned Winfield, hoping he wouldn't have to pay everything the humans had.

"Well, I _might _give you a discount. That is, if you're lucky." Amanda smiled and quickened the pace as they appeared in the stables. The soldiers had been placing bets to see who could hold their hand in the stable longest without it being bitten off. Winfield watched as a soldier pulled his hand out quickly and jumped back, everyone looked and saw that he gashes all over his hand. Everyone laughed and handed him some coins, for they had lost the bet. When Amanda walked in everyone turned to watch her walk, and just to tease them, Amanda flicked her golden hair back which made the soldiers start to lean over and look dumb.

She looked to Winfield and they both laughed, then Winfield looked at his soldiers and said, "Stop being stupid, we will need you _and _your hands on the way back. Remember, the gryphons are still out there." Winfield stated, hoping they would stop their idiocy. "So Amanda, I saw you fighting those gryphons, it was amazing. And what was that hook thing of yours?"

Amanda pulled out the hook-like thing and looked at it thoughtfully, "I call it a hook-shot. I invented it a while ago. It used a metal wire that's wound up in a spiral, which I call a string, that when pulled back will go back into place once it is allowed. I use it to shot this hook which sticks into its target and then I found a way so make it when the spring is going back into place, it pulls the chain with the hook attached and brings me next to my target. See this?" Amanda pushed a button and two thick metal bars sprang out of the sides of the arrow-tip-like hook. Amanda pushed them slowly in, but not all the way and let go, and they shot back into place. "These also use springs, when I push this button," Amanda pointed to a little button on the side of the handle, "These shot out. And when the go into the target they slide back but once deep in the target and in a air pocket they are able to spring back out, making it nearly impossible to come out of the target without killing it, or if its wood it wouldn't exactly kill it but, you know. Then with hook in the target, it makes impossible to come out and let me drop. The once I'm at my target I push the button again," she did and the bars went into the sides of the hook again, "Then I can slide it out easily." Amanda paused to let it soak in, "It took my quite a while just to figure out how to make a spring. But once I did it has done me well. I could make one for you." Winfield didn't say anything for a while, trying to understand what he had just heard and seen.

"So, you could make me one?"

"Yes I could. But it would cost ya'!" Amanda winked and laughed. Winfield joined her. "But, I don't have the materials to do it again," said Amanda sadly.

"Well then, shall we go where there _are _materials?" said Winfield slyly.

"And where is that?"

"My fortress."

"Shall we go there through the air?"

"Depends, how much for it all?"

"For you, good friend, 5,000 coins and nothing more." This caused Winfield to smile. "Alright men, choose your gryphon and hop on. And don't worry, as long as you don't bother it, you'll make it back with all of you intact."

Serk silently watched from the dark as he listened them attempt to learn his language, "Re jron yeml re vhon majfary tryek wra janflo, (You know, there is an easier way,)" he stated.

"Rekl, glohj fgre tryoh hikm, hagf lek motak? (Hey, don't you have something to eat outside?)" shot back Zaron. At this Serk shrugged and lifted his heavy body and stomped out of the room, Shadow guessed he was off to kill something.

"What did you say? And I thought he could understand our language, just we couldn't speak it." Spike question.

"He can," said Zaron blankly.

"You're hiding something, aren't you?" asked Shadow.

"Well, wouldn't you like to know that," smirked the old cat.

"Wow, for a priest you're not too…hmm… how to put it? Polite? I think that's it," came back Shadow, he grinned when Zaron had nothing witty to say.

"Well then. The first thing is the word 'the,' the simplest word in all languages. In dragon it is 'fy,' but when combined with the word 'of', for 'of the.' It turns into 'vo.' Like my name, Katvozaron. 'Cat _of the_ Dragon.' Which makes 'kat' mean cat and 'zaron' be dragon. For our dragon friend, we call him Serk, which means 'king.' These would be the easiest of the words in the language. From here on it is so confusing no living thing has ever gotten it except dragons," finished Zaron. Shadow and Spike starred stupidly at him, as if to see right through him. Spike's eye started to twitch. Zaron waited until Spike's eye stopped twitching, then he started to crack up. Spike and Shadow stood up and starred at him as he fell onto the ground laughing. It seemed that he didn't plan to stop for a long time. Zaron fell back on his back and started to bang his fists on the ground, Shadow and Spike just starred, Shadow started to shake his head slowly when Zaron finally stopped and tried to get up, but when he looked at Shadow shaking his head fell over again laughing.

After what seemed like ages Zaron stood up, "Don't go off and pop a blood vessel, buddy," stated Shadow. This made Zaron come to his senses.

"My bad," he said simply.

"Yes, your bad." Spike came back with.

"Well then. What I meant to say is the only possible way to learn the language is by magic. That's what Serk was saying earlier. Now, get ready to learn. Fy, votryek zaron reglor aktfret," Zaron said powerfully. Shadow and Spike waited for something to happen. Nothing did.

"Well, did anything happen?" asked Spike.

"We shall find out, Serk!" called Zaron. Serk stumbled in and heavily sat down next to them, animal blood trickled from the side of his mouth.

"Serk, say something and we'll see if they understand." Serk nodded.

"I just at four and a half centaurs," said Serk clearly.

"Hey, I understood! And why does it sound like my language?" Shadow asked and paused. "You what?" he screamed after he realized what Serk had said.

"When you have the spell done on you, you not only understand the dragon's language, you hear it as your own. It's easier that way." Spike and Shadow nodded.

"Sooo, now what?" asked Spike.

"We wait. And if the prophecies are right, he will be here soon."

All the penguins started to trudge through the now very thin snow to The Circle, looking as if they were not sure if this was true or not, but they trusted their leader, so they went with it anyway. Mega stood on top of the stage that was part of The Circle and was watching to see that everyone was coming so that no one was vaporized to dust. Next to him stood Power who was staring at the sun to see how much more time will be left. Sam, Tom and Kenny started to walk towards The Circle, but it took them awhile because they had to make their way around all the penguins who were also trying to get there. Something caught Sam's eye so he told Tom and Kenny that he would meet them there and went to what he thought he saw. The thing passed him again. Sam looked around, making sure no one was there to see him and hissed, "Mary!" The blurs stopped and Mary stood there. She seemed in a hurry.

"Sam, I'm not sure how I'm going to get through this portal without being noticed. I'm going to need you to stall a little bit so I can make it though unnoticed. And no questions." She spoke quickly and kept looking around. "I must go now, and do as I said. Bye," Mary trailed off and disappeared in a blur. Sam understood and ran over to The Circle, when he got there he saw Power pointing to the sky, so he looked and saw it was time. A purple blur appeared on the stage which caused Mega and Power to jump off. Soon it started to stretch out to make a giant purple circle with lightning like lines running around though the portal. Sam remembered what he had to do and ran onto the stage and raised his hands, causing everyone to become quiet. He paused, trying to think of something to say, but then Mega came onto the stage and started the talking for Sam.

"My friends, we are about to head to another world, but in this world there is a war, and we must take a side!" Mega echoed, "There are many sides, we could become our own but we would be overrun and slaughtered quickly, we could go to the side of the humans but… well that would be just plain stupid for they would turn against us in the end. Which now leaves two more sides, the side of our friend Sam here, or the side of the weasels, now who do we choose?" Sam heard something whiz behind him, he sighed in relief and looked to see what was going on. The penguins all cheered when Mega mentioned the side of Sam again. "Well then, shall we travel with him?" The crowd cheered again. "Now let's get to our new home! Power you lead and I'll make sure everyone makes it through." Power nodded and hesitated, but then walked into the portal. Everyone cheered again and got into a single-filed line and started going through the portal. Mega started to count and when they had all gone through he frantically looked around, Sam didn't know what he was looking for. "Some one hasn't come yet!" He shouted.

"Tom, Kenny, go through, I'll go help Mega find this guy. Now go!" Kenny waited for Tom who quietly nodded to Sam and ran through the portal, followed by Kenny. Sam turned around and started to run back to where Mega had gone, there was still one tent left. Sam sprinted for it and saw Mega run in up ahead. When Sam got there he saw Party sitting there, blasting him music so loud that he couldn't hear a thing. Mega ripped off his headphones and started to yell at him, "You idiot! If we hadn't come out here you would have been left and vaporized… TO DUST!" though Mega knew he was over reacting he wanted Party to not forget this.

"Umm, Mega, is the portal supposed to be getting smaller?" asked Sam with a hint of sarcasm. Mega gasped and grabbed Party, who instinctively grabbed his CD player and let then himself get pulled out. Sam looked around to see if there was anything worth something, then he spotted something, grabbed it and sprinted after Mega who was carrying Party with ease. When Mega finally made it to the portal is was only about five feet in height and width. He threw Party through the portal and then looked back to Sam who was still running. He waited for a second but when the portal was only three feet tall he went in. Sam jumped up the stairs and ran along the stage, the portal was only two feet tall now. Sam jumped and did a baseball-feet-first slide and slide quickly along the icy wood. The portal was only now a foot tall and as Sam was going through it he had to duck his head back and suck in his stomach, just in case because he didn't want part of his stomach in another dimension. Sam stopped sliding with his head still outside the portal and it was closing fast. Sam closed his eyes knowing that since the rest of his body was in another world there was nothing he could do but just close his eyes and hope for a quick death.

A couple of hours later, Luther had still been leaning against the same tree, sitting on the same rock, head leaning against the same leaves and thinking the same thing: what to do when he was able to move again. _What if all of my men but a few were killed in the fight? Then what? The King will go haywire if he finds out that all we did was destroy their gate and kill some watchmen, so we can't go back to him. If most of my men lived, maybe we could attack again? But what is Winfield is waiting for us? Maybe he'll ambush us right here? Man, let's see if I can stand, _Luther thought as he started to lean forward onto his knees. This hurt him a little but he didn't care. He lifted one leg and was now leaning on his knee that was still on the ground. Then he lifted his other leg and started to stretch his legs out, but he quickly screamed and fell back down. "Hey! I just screamed, hey, I'm talking! My voice works! Yay!" Luther wanted to jump for joy but he knew he wasn't able.

The medic heard his scream and quickly ran over to him, "Sir, are you alright?"

"Yes, now help me up!" ordered Luther, the medic grabbed his wing and pulled him to his feet. Now Luther could see that almost all of his men had survived, and were all now stretched out, playing one game or another. Quickly all the soldiers noticed he was awake and speedily packed everything up. Luther tried walking, saw that it was successful and started to pace, thinking. Once he was done he turned to his men and shouted, "Men, we are going to attack again! They won't expect it again so soon. Now ready your weapons and let's move!"

The medic sprinted up to Luther, "Sir, you're insane! You've barely healed and these men are still tired!" he begged.

"No, these men are some of the best there is. And, they are dying for the greatest cause of them all: defeating King Admens, if he even deserved the right to be called the _king_." Luther said without showing a sign of emotion. This left the medic speechless. Luther watched as all of his men got all of their stuff ready and he himself picked up his crossbow and his perfectly made sword. When everyone was ready, Luther wordlessly signaled for them to start moving. They crept up on the fort and notched their bows and loaded their crossbows. Luther held his hand up for them to not fire, then he ordered some men to get lots of dry wood and leaves. When they came back he had them make a long and thick line of it in front of the archers. Then Luther ordered all the beer and wine or any other alcoholic drink people had brought to him and he poured it along the wood. The Luther took a piece of flint from his belt and banged it together with a stone until there was a spark, which landed on the sticks, which made a small fire that stretched along the lines of the soldiers who stuck the tip of the arrow they had notched which caught on fire and their tips burned. Then Luther held his wing in the air, and then he swung it down towards the fort which told the archers to shot the torrent of fire from the protecting forest onto the unsuspecting fort.

Everyone marched with the reins of a gryphon in their hands down the tunnel. Earlier the gryphons had done the choosing of who would ride them, not the humans. Whenever the wrong human went for its reins it snapped it beak forward, telling the person, 'Hell no! I'd rather have some one turn me inside out right now over you riding me.' This made the whole process take a long while, but once everyone had found the right one, they proudly stood side by side with their new found rider and steed. Amanda led them all through the maze of halls once again and everyone was getting jumpy from the thought of having a gryphon to ride and show off to everyone else. Once they had reached the entrance everyone remember the gryphons and how they were still out there. At this everyone cowered away from the way out and huddled together. Winfield and Amanda laughed and Winfield started to pet his gryphon. Then he got on and motion to his men to do the same. They hesitated and eventually followed his lead. "Now men, we're going to ride quickly back to Dinton, Amanda is going to cover us, and you'll see how." This was the signal to Amanda, she stuck two of her fingers in his mouth and whistled extremely loud. Every one waited a second then and loud thumping noise started to come from over head. Taka soon floated down, in her mouth was a half chewed gryphon. "This, my friends, is our secret weapon," Winfield said proudly. Everyone started to murmur and wonder at the beautiful dragon. Amanda walked up to it and got on its back where a well made saddle sat.

"Let's rock," Amanda grinned.

_14_

_Another Attack_

Sam felt a rush of wind against his body and then he felt something grab his foot. He looked up to see Power holding him up by his foot. Power smiled and Sam smiled and thanked him. Then Power let him down and helped him up. Then Sam walked over to Party and handed him the thing he had grabbed, "I'll have you know that I nearly died trying to get this to you," Sam stated simply as he handed the thing to Party.

"Wow! You saved it! Yes! My CD case! You are my hero, Sam." Party shot up and hugged him. Sam pushed him away and walked over to where Tom and Kenny stood. They were looking at something, and when Sam went next to them, he saw it. They were standing on the other side of the mountain, only lower down and they were on a steep ledge. But what they were really looking at was the sun, the orange and gold sun that was rising over the mountains on the other side of the valley and lighting up the morning dew on the trees, making the river the flowed through the valley seem like it was liquid crystal. The sun also lit one of the places being Elstac, which stood proudly, its mirror tower gleaming in the warmth of the new rays of sunlight. Also, about three miles away stood the main place being they place they had come all this way for, Fort Dinton. But something was wrong about it. It seemed that fire was shooting from the forest next to Dinton and covering it in flames. Then Sam heard a noise, it sounded like a horn, a human horn. It blew loudly and the fort seemed to come to life. What seemed like millions of tiny metallic figures appeared all over the fort and started do shoot back at the forest. _Some one is attacking Dinton! _Sam thought. He looked to Tom and Kenny but they seemed entranced by its beautiful colors.

"My mom thinks Kenny and I are at a camp…" Tom said stupidly, as if he had no idea what he was saying.

"My real name is Kentucky Fried Chicken…" Kenny said in the same stupid voice.

"Uhh, guys? You alright?" asked Sam.

"I cheated the first time I won the knife throwing championship," Tom said stupidly.

"I not sure why people think picking my beak is so bad," Kenny stated.

"You know what? I'm leaving before I learn too much." Sam sighed and walked over to Mega, who was watching the battle from another ledge.

"The archers in the trees are quite skilled," Mega said without even looking to see who he was talking to.

"Yes they are. I wonder who they are," Sam thought aloud.

"Should we help? They _are _fighting our enemy."

"No, we have more than one enemy and the other just might be one. We can only watch." Mega nodded but never took his gaze from the fight.

Sage shot up from Winfield's bed when the horn sounded. He liked to sleep in and Winfield's bed was the best there was. He ran to his quarters and got his armor on and grabbed his bow and arrows and ran to where he saw flaming arrows flying over the fort and into people and the ground where they were doused. Sage sprinted along side of the walls on the third floor and jumped and landed on his stomach next to one of his men, "Status report!" yelled Sage.

"We've lost a lot of things already. We believe it's the chickens again. But now they flaming arrows and are burning the wooden parts of the fort." The soldier said, while making sure he was hiding behind the stone wall as to not be hit by an arrow. Sage sighed and crawled over to the edge, then he grabbed the ledge and flung himself over, landing on the floor below. From there he ran along the open walled hall and turned deeper into the fort. Then he stopped at a door that was covered in chains and locks. Sage fumbled with his chain of keys until he found the right one, with it he unlocked the door and went inside, there he found a crate which he broke and open and inside was what he was looking for, Winfield's experiment. It was a small canteen, only it wasn't filled with water and on the top of it there was a fuse, it was a bomb. Sage grabbed it quickly but carefully held it with delicate hands, and then he sprinted out back climbed back up to where he was. From there ran back to the person he had talked to and hid with him behind the short stone wall. Then he started to mumble, "Shlejam jolatfi!" Sage waited and contently watched as a flame slowly grew on the end of the fuse. He smiled at his work and watched the fuse lower and when it was low enough he stood up and threw the canteen as hard as he could at the archers in the forest. The canteen hit the ground and bounced, right into the fire.

They took off furiously as they launched themselves into the mob of cannibal gryphons. The wind stung their faces but they felt great to be in the air. A roaring and crunching sound came from the right as Taka snatched up a gryphon in her jaws. When this happened all the gryphons turned to Taka, and looked at her angrily, they had finally decided how to defeat Taka. As if there had just been a count down, all the gryphons darted towards Taka. Taka started to fly away but Amanda patted her neck for reassurance and muttered something to her. Taka went to as much of a smile a dragon can give and opened her jaw wide, to take a massive intake of air. The gryphons, having no idea what she was doing kept their midair dash at her and were nearing at a dangerous pace. Taka waited for them to get close enough and when the gryphons were within 50 feet she exhaled and torrent of fire at the gryphons that were going to fast to turn away from it. Taka slowly moved her head from one end of the line of gryphons to the other as to chare and burn everyone of them. Soon every gryphon had fallen to the ground burned to death, burned badly and then fell to their death or got burned, fell and lived but were too weak to move and later died anyway. Taka snorted triumphantly and turned around to follow Winfield and his men.

The canteen ricocheted off a rock and landed in the fire in front of the archers. "Hey, who threw a canteen?" puzzled an archer.

"Wow, the humans are getting stupider and-" the archer was cut off by a deafening boom, followed by dirt and the flaming sticks flying at them, followed by a wave of fire the shot out in every direction. Cries of pain and agony reeked throughout the air and the smell of burnt skin. Luther, at the time of the explosion was about thirty feet away. He heard the boom and quickly looked to see the wave of fire raging towards him. His eyes widened as he quickly grabbed the nearest person to him and started to run away, screaming, "Run! Fire! Run!" Without looking back Luther could tell the people who didn't run in time were now dead or dying. The person he held seemed dazed, but when he came back to his senses, he started crying in terror.

"The fire, It's still coming!" This made Luther pick up the pace, he sprinted through the trees, leaped over a rock and into a creek. Luther made a quick decision and turned and ran down the creek. The creek soon became a river and it quickly got wider and deeper until eventually he was swimming. Luther knew this would be futile to swim from fire so he looked back to see the fire shooting right at them. The person he carried yelped and Luther shout over the roar of the fire, "Hold your breath!" With that Luther quickly swam deep under the water, pulling to person with him. Once Luther felt he wad deep enough he looked up and saw a torrent of fire shooting over the river. About one minute passed before the fire went away. When it did, Luther swam up and started to breath heavily. His adrenaline had gotten him that far and now that it had passed he felt extremely weak. He let himself drift to the side of the river, pulled the person up and climbed up after him. Then Luther crawled up onto the sandy shore of the river and leaned against a tree unconscious.

Winfield had already named his gryphon, he had named it Maloro, which meant 'The Best.' As everyone flew along, they all chatted about their new gryphons, about what they would name them and how they would show them off to their friends. Winfield was also in this conversation, which was unusual. This was the first time he had felt good, as if everything was finally working out. He had reunited with his best friend, he had some of the most powerful creatures in existence and nothing was about to try to kill him. He hadn't felt this way since before he had been appointed general. Some of the conversations were like this: "Hey, so, what do you think a woman likes in a man?" some one asked.

"A gryphon!" laughed another. Or there was:

"So, how do you think I should get back at my brother?"

"Show off your gryphon!" As Winfield chatted, Amanda was flying behind, looking back at what had been her home for many years for the last time. The sun was just rising which made her home look twice a beautiful as it was, causing Amanda to miss it even more.

A loud noise echoed around Sam and the others, Sam looked to where it was coming from and saw it. Where the battle that had been going on, trees were starting to fall away from one spot, and in that spot a wall of fire was running out in every direction, burning everything in its path. "Hey guys! Look!" Sam pointed to what he was looking at and everyone came to watch. Faint screams could be heard from below, and each one made Sam want to run and help, more and more but he knew he couldn't. Everyone watched as the fire went farther and farther out in every direction, but Mega was the first to realize something.

"Everyone, get down!" Mega screamed as he started to run to the other side of the ledge. Everyone didn't know what he meant but when they looked back to the fire they saw it rising up the mountain. When they saw this they all turned and fallowed Mega. Everyone jumped behind a rock and peeked their heads out to watch the fire shoot up right past where they were. When it past everyone sighed, except Nerdy, who seemed worried, and Sam noticed it.

"Hey Nerdy, what's up?" Sam asked.

"Well, we're on a snow covered mountain, right?" Sam nodded. "And fire melts snow right?" Sam nodded again. "What if the fire makes it to the snow? Then it would melt and, and…" Sam understood now.

"Everyone! Get everything and start heading down the hill as fast as you can. No questions, just do it!" Sam yelled, and then he grabbed his stuff and started down the mountain. Everyone but Tom, Kenny, Nerdy and Mega just stupidly stood not knowing what was happening. Later the sound of running water started to sound and instantly everyone knew what was going to happen. There was going to be a flood, a _big_ flood.

Sage yelled, "Everyone, GET DOWN!" Sage jumped down below four levels and onto a tree in the training yard on which he swung his arm around which caused him to spin around it until he hit the ground. From there he ran as far away from the wall as possible. The soldiers, seeing how quickly Sage wanted away, followed his lead and ran down after him. A booming noise echoed throughout the courtyard which was followed by a creaking noise, and when Sage turned to see made his gut twist around in his stomach. He saw the wall that he stood on only seconds before falling down, and not just falling anywhere, it was falling on his men. 200 tons or more worth of brick came crashing down all around the men, and their terrible screams rang into Sages ear. And that was only the beginning. After the dust had cleared he saw an even worse sight. His men who were outside the walls with swords were on the ground, smoking. They were charred blacked and some were still on fire. One of the men still alive was burned and moaning. Sage spotted him and ran to him, in hopes to help. When he got there he knelt down on one knee, "I'm here. What do you need?" Sage asked.

"I-i-it's…s-s-so c-c-cold. K-k-kill m-me, p-p-please." The man stuttered.

"But your on fire, how can it be cold?" Sage said stupidly.

"Y-y-you're st-st-stup-p-id…" Then the man died which caused Sage to start getting angry. He was furious, with himself.

_If hadn't thrown the canteen…I should have thought about my men below. God, I'm so stupid! _Sage started to pace around angrily thinking. After a couple of minutes the human soldiers came out from their hiding and they too, started to feel bad. For all the men who just died. Most took off their helmets and places it at their heart, the others followed their lead and gave them a moment of silence.

Winfield was about to fall sleep when a strange noise brought him back. He snatched up his sword and frantically looked around. He saw Amanda laughing at him and Taka making odd noises that Winfield guessed was a laugh. Winfield snorted and tried hard not to smile. Amanda started to make funny faces until Winfield too, broke out laughing. Their laughed was cut off by a soldier's scream. Winfield looked and saw one of his men falling through the air, screaming. Winfield's first instinct was to jump off after him but he remembered he would just be killing himself too. Instead, he had Maloro make a headlong dive to beat the soldier to the bottom and catch him. The race was on as wind sliced Winfield's eyes and caused his golden hair to fly around everywhere. Winfield squinted and ducked down further to cause him to go faster. Winfield inched past the soldier and quickly gained ground, and when he thought he had gone far enough, he reared Maloro which caused it to swoop under the falling soldier. The man's scream grew louder as he approached which cause Winfield to brace himself more and more. He even started to feel tension building up in Maloro as the soldier flew at them. It all felt slow to Winfield as he watched the man hit his final decent towards the gryphon.

The noise of rushing water caused everyone to pick up the pace. Sam was the first to make it to the base of the mountain, from where he started to run in the direction of Dinton, his destination. The sound of penguins squawking caused Sam to start to panic, the water had caught up with them. This meant he had no escape. He looked around for any way out, but to no avail. But then he spotted it. It was a tree, but not any tree, since he was surrounded by them, it was an easily climbed tree. "Everyone! Climb trees, it our only hope!" Sam ran to the tree and leaped up to a branch and pulled himself up. He then turned and reached down to Tom who was below him. He started to pull but stopped when he saw the tsunami of water going right at him. In the water were penguins screaming frantically and reaching for tree braches or anything to stop them. Sam turned to Tom, smiled, and simply said, "We almost made it." At that, he and Tom were swept away with the current. The water was ice cold, for it was ice only five minutes earlier. Sam was freezing and looked for a way out of the water. He spotted a tree that had been ripped from the ground, roots and all floating near him. He swam to the tree and found two chickens unconscious, tangled in the roots on the base of the tree. One he recognized, it looked like the general he saw get awarded next to his father in what people call the regular season awards because after a massive battle two years into the war, everyone thought it was over and an award ceremony was held, but when the humans attacked Cairan, the battles began again, which people thought as the playoffs since the main fighting had started and the still surviving races kept going in the playoffs. Sam remembered, "Luther!" He said aloud in surprise. He quickly swam to the tree, avoiding many trees along the way. He pulled himself up and then pulled Luther and the other one up with him and laid them out in-between some branches so they wouldn't fall off. Tom soon appeared next to the tree, dazed. He had been thrown into a tree by the current. Sam pulled him up and laid back, tired. He was about to fall asleep but the tree slammed into another tree which threw Sam and Tom off the tree. Sam grabbed Tom and grabbed a tree that they passed which cut Sam's wing because his arm hit the sharp bark hard. Sam winced but held on for dear life. He fought the current but soon lost and just let himself be pulled by the current for he was too weak to do otherwise. He spotted a rock wall that the current was sending him and everyone else at and closed his eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry dad, I tried, I truly did."

The man hit the gryphon's back hard, and when the man hit, it made a loud cracking noise. Winfield started to panic, if the gryphon's back had broken, so they would surely fall to their death, and what would catch him, a gryphon? But as soon as he realized the gryphon was fine and it was the man's back popping from being snapped back, he felt better and had Maloro fly back up to the others. When he reached earshot he heard everyone clapping for him and cheering things like, "Way to go chief, saved a good friend of mine!" Winfield nodded at the cheering and tried to catch his breath, what he had just done had scared him breathless. The man he had saved looked scared and was shivering. He had nearly faced death and was still not over the fact he had nearly died. Winfield dropped the man onto another gryphon that belonged to a friend of the man who fell and flew over to Amanda and Taka, who were also smiling.

Water slammed into the stone wall and shot over it, another round of water roared around and into the courtyard through the blown down wall. By now Sage and his men had already started to flee for their lives. Sage had run to the eastern tower and run to the top where the room he had shared with Grant before he had died. He ran in and slammed the door behind him, panting. He looked around and saw out the window and realized how high up he was and how there was no way the water could get him. But he was wrong, the tower started to screech and bend the water's will, throwing it back and for and throwing Sage around with it. After a couple of minutes of shaking everything went quiet. Sage waited but when nothing came and slowly opened the door. What he saw made him want to jump for joy, nothing had been destroyed and it looked like no one had been hurt, he looked around to the other three towers and saw all of the other men trying to get out of the towers. Also that all the water had gone with the bodies and debris with it. Sage got himself back together and yelled over to the other towers, "Everyone, we need to get to work, the chickens are gone. We need to rebuild that wall and take a body count. Where are Charles and Mathew? And where's Alexandra? We need her to redesign that wall, now come on people, MOVE!" Sage sat down to catch his breath, _What if Winfield comes and finds out what happened? What would he do to me? Oh man, maybe he won't come back in time, yeah, or maybe… oh crap._ Sage's thinking was stopped when he saw a black dot appear on the horizon, followed by about 100 more and one really big dot. "He's back…" Sage whimpered.

The sound of dripping water brought Spike and Shadow out of their conversation and they looked up at the ceiling, water was falling off the ceiling and on to them. They stood up and watched as water started to come down more and more, then the sound of a waterfall startled them. "Water, it's heading right towards us. RUN!" Shadow screamed, helped Zaron up and started to run down the tunnel opposite of the water.

Sam put his hands in front of his face but at the last second the water dipped into a cave in the side of the mountain, bringing Sam down with it. When he opened his eyes again he saw he was gently floating down a cave and soon the water thinned and lightly dropped him and the ground. He looked up and saw five figures standing and looking at him. He rubbed his eyes and saw that two of them were Tom and Kenny, but three he did not recognize. One of the figures was a cat, another a hedgehog and the third was a weasel. Sam blankly noted all this but when he realized that the third figure was a weasel he started to panic. Weasels had been Missair's greatest enemy besides the humans and they had fought ruthlessly for many years. Sam crawled backwards in panic. "Sam, it's all right. They're friends. This is Spike," Tom pointed to the hedgehog, "Shadow," Tom pointed to the weasel, "and Zaron," he pointed to the cat. Sam stood up and wiped off some of the water that was on him still.

"So, how'd you guys get away from the water?" Sam asked Tom and Kenny.

"We didn't. When you fell off the log I did too, but I swam with the current so I got here faster. Kenny was the first to get taken away so he got here first, even before me. And these people say they knew we were coming and how we're on some special mission. I'm not sure whether I believe them but maybe you will."

While Tom explained Sam just nodded and when he finished he turned to Shadow, "So, you're Shadow, as in Shadowback, Prince of Theerandor?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, it's a long story and we have only so much time so I'll make it quick. I spied on the humans, I was captured, I escaped with Spike, now I'm here."

"And who are you?" Sam asked Zaron

"I'm the last Dragon Priest. I have seen signs of your coming. You are a much greater person than you think. Now listen to what I have to say before you think I'm crazy. You have a mission, everyone is born with a purpose. Some of them may be as small as going to school with a person who later become famous, because without realizing it, you being there could change his view on something. Now, your purpose is way bigger than that. You, you are the Sage of the Revolution."

_15_

_The Age of War Nears its Close_

Winfield stopped talking when he saw something in the distance, it was Dinton. Something was wrong with it though, one of its walls was missing. Winfield's first thought was, _Sage! Wait, maybe we were attacked again, what if we lost? Oh god!_ But Winfield saw as he got closer that there were men working on the broken wall, and they were human. _So at least we didn't lose the battle but why is everything so wet? _Winfield sat there thinking until a soldier pointed out that Mount Tender didn't have any snow on it and Mount Tender, being a 13,000 foot tall mountain, had always had snow somewhere on it, even during the heat wave they had had the year before, but it wasn't even that hot out. Something was wrong. Winfield spurred his gryphon and swooped down onto the courtyard of Dinton. Everyone was running too busy to notice him but when Taka landed beside him everyone stopped to look. Sage came running down the tower's steps and ran to Winfield.

"We were attacked, and I used your experiment and it blew all the chickens up and out wall too but it made the snow melt and there was a flood," Sage stammered. Winfield nodded which surprised Sage, normally Winfield would have turned him inside out but instead he just nodded, but that's when Sage noticed Amanda. "So, have a nice trip?" Sage winked and hinted towards Amanda.

Winfield laughed too, "Sure did. It was very successful. Now, let's get that wall put back up, shall we?"

Penguins climbed out from trees and others from behind barriers. It looked like a good hundred had been killed in the flood. "Well, that was quite the welcome wagon," one penguin said. Luther was now conscious again. He looked around and saw penguins everywhere and the chicken he had saved standing in-front of him on the ground. Luther untangled himself and looked around at the damage. Everything seemed destroyed, yet it seemed so many had lived. All the fires had been put out and all the burned down trees had been washed away, so it seemed the flood was pretty convenient without the deaths. Luther started to remember what had happened and started to wonder if any of the soldiers had lived. His question was answered quickly. A chicken climbed out from under some brush, he seemed dazed, but the weird thing about this chicken was he was black all over and some of his feathers were missing. Luther thought he was burned at first but realized he wasn't, it was coal. Soon more chickens started to climb out of a hole in the ground that was nonexistent only minutes before. The medic climbed out, saw Luther and smiled. Luther smiled too.

"We're ready when you are," the medic smiled.

"I'm always ready. So, how did you find a coal mine?" Luther asked.

"Well, that chicken over there," he pointed to the one who had come out first, "he fell into this hole and when we heard the explosion we climbed in after him. I'm amazed we suffered as low casualties as we did. Hey, look, there are penguins here, how about that?" Luther nodded and walked over to the penguins.

"Who's your leader?" Luther asked.

"I am," Mega said as he stepped forward. "Who are you?"

"I'm General Luther of Missair. Can I ask what you're doing here?"

"We just got here. A flood happened and we fled and ended up down here. Were you the one's fighting over there?" Mega asked.

"Yes, that reminds me, are you with us or against us?"

"Well, are you against Winfield?"

"Yes I am."

"Then it looks like we have a new ally."

When Zaron finished explaining everything everyone was quiet, wondering how Sam would take it in. It took awhile before anyone said anything, but Sam talked first, "Do you seriously want me to believe this? For all I know you're just a crazy old hag who has completely lost it?" Zaron sighed and whistled, everyone waited and in a minute or so a loud thumping noise shook the cave. Soon Serk came stomping in, catching Sam by surprise, now this was more than a spy mission, it was the course of the world. When Sam understood this, he crashed. Tears filled his eyes, his legs weakened and his voice left him. Everything he knew, all he ever thought, dashed. Him growing up to be a tactician was gone, growing up like a normal kid and sometime getting married was gone, everything, gone.

Sam fell to his knees and broke out sobbing, "How am I going to be some sort of hero? I thought heroes were supposed to take this kind of news and take it on daringly, showing no sign of fear. Look at me! I'm not doing that! I'm crying like a little chick!"

"Sam, those heroes are fake. There is no such thing who can take on this kind of information without getting emotional. The real heroes aren't those you hear about who hear this and say, 'I'll do it!' Those don't exist. The real ones are the ones are the ones who hear it and no matter what pull through to try andsucceed," Tom said as he helped Sam up who was not sobbing anymore. Sam sniffed and nodded, then he looked to Zaron and said, "I'll do it."

Winfield was in a particularly good mood as he baffled his men as he not only ordered them around, he helped them do what he ordered to be done. This was so unusual that one of the more strange soldiers thought it was the sign of the apocalypse and ran around screaming until some one threw a rock into his head and he fell unconscious. As the day went on and it got hotter Winfield and his men still lifted the heavy stones around the courtyard. Most of the men had taken off their shirts from the heat and most of their skin was turning red from sunburn but because of Winfield's cheeriness everyone felt fine and glad to be working with him. Amanda helped also, Taka alone could lift one of the bricks without much trouble and Amanda helped with all the others. At dawn two of the three stories worth of the brick wall had been rebuilt and the day soldiers switched out with night but Winfield stayed working and when the soldiers noticed this they stopped and watched him work. They watched until one of the soldiers walked out to Winfield saying, "If our general is working day and night, then we have to right to only work day." All the soldiers agreed and slowly they all decided to go out and work along side Winfield. Soon everything was almost done and as the last massive brick was being carried across the courtyard by mostly tired soldiers since it was past midnight. Winfield was leaning against a wall panting when he noticed it and quickly ran over to help, despite his fatigue. Soon they carried it up and put it in place. The second it was secure everyone cheered and went off to sleep.

All the penguins had regrouped and Luther and his men had also regrouped. They all stood outside the cave setting up for the night, since it was already extremely late. None of the penguins were really that tired because their dimension which was now destroyed was on a completely different time zone. Luther and his men had introduced themselves to the penguins and most found new friends that would come to be long lasting relationships. Luther and Mega sat next to a fire on that had been built on look out for ambush and talked about stories of their past and they almost forgot the dire situation they were in. Luther laughed as Mega explained how Farmer had always went out to farm since he was four and how when Mega had gotten into a fight with his brother SteelHead Mega had punched SteelHead in the face and when he did he broke his own hand but SteelHead shot through the wall and landed on his head and because of his odd shaped head he balanced perfectly on his head and he couldn't get up until some one helped him lift his own head up. He explained how SteelHead's head had never grown so when he was a kid it was too heavy for him to carry. Then he explained how every penguin was born with something unusual about them like Mega's super strength. Luther nodded and listened intently. Once Mega was done Luther started about his life, "My father's name was Lain and he was a captain in the army, so, naturally, I grew up in a militaristic life. I too, soon joined the army myself, and because of what people call my 'natural soldier type manner' I quickly flew through the ranks in the army, soon pasting my own father. Lain wasn't at all dishonored that I had past him in the ranks but instead he was proud and helped me with my training. Then he left on a mission with the only person besides the king who was higher than me, General Scott Wing, who was ambushed by Winfield and all were killed. From then on I vowed vengeance upon Winfield and now here I am." Luther paused and waited to see Mega's reaction.

It took awhile for Mega to respond, "Well, I have been on this planet for about two hours and all I've heard about is this evil Winfield. Do you want the truth?" Luther nodded. "Well, I think there is nothing cruel about him. He is just a man who is fighting for the survival of his race. I would definitely get harsh if it was the only way to keep my clan alive. I know he is my enemy but I give him my respect as a leader, for if his ways had kept them alive for this long then what he is doing it right, and for that I solute him." Mega made a saluting motion and looked at Luther.

Luther nodded and said, "You know, I've never thought of it that way. I guess I've always thought of it as blind revenge for my father. Wow… Well, we sure can't just say 'hey, Winfield, we agree with you now, we can stop fighting.' You and I both know that. The only way is to finish it on the battle field."

"Well, I guess I'll be there with you."

"So, can we go to sleep please? It's getting really late and I want to get back outside in the morning to see what happened to everyone else."

Everyone was about to lie on the rocks when Zaron said, "Hey! Do you think me, a 59 year old cat would have been sleeping on a cave floor for 39 years? No, everyone grab hands." Zaron and everyone else link hand and Zaron said, "Aslo met yofla ke Bedwando!" and with that everything around them went white and everyone closed their eyes from the brightness, then they reappeared in a very nice house that was made of marble and covered in colorful rugs. "Make your selves at home. If you're wondering this my house in Bedwando."

"Bedwando! I thought this was on some mythical island on the Ever Ocean! Bedwando is real?" Sam said in surprise.

"Of course it is, look out on the deck." Zaron said as he pointed towards the deck. Sam walked past many paintings of dragons fighting and of animals who wore the same things as Zaron, but in his excitement he didn't pay much attention to the fact that their eyes were moving around, watching him. He went out on the deck and saw the most beautiful thing ever. The sun was rising over and endless ocean coloring everything a beautiful shade of orange. Below the deck were palm trees and a beach with perfect sand and to the sides there were shells lying around. "Believe me now?" Sam jumped and turned and saw Zaron looking at the sunrise.

"Yes, but why is the sun only rising here now?"

"The times are different, this is so far away that when the sun is gone where you live the sun is over here. It's a very complicated thing." Sam nodded and looked back out. Tom and Kenny came out and soon asked the same questions as Sam and got the same answers. They walked back inside past the paintings and Zaron showed them to their rooms and they all quickly fell asleep.

The sun rose, giving a new shade to the valley. Winfield was the first to get up and he quickly got ready in his light armor and ran out to take over for one of the sentries. He grabbed a spyglass and looked out at the sky and frowned, and then he looked into the woods and across the vast plains. It was coming. He ran back down and grabbed one of his experiments and ran back outside. This is one he had already tested and he had given some to people he knew. Winfield called it 'Wat' or 'Water Talk.' Winfield ran out to the bird bath (which was never used) and poured out some green liquid from the canteen into the water. The water turned dark green, then it turned clear, and finally it showed some one's living room. It was a small room with a couple of sown branch chairs with a marble table and a fire going in the stone fireplace. "Hello?" Winfield whispered to the reflection. The second he did the face of a curious, purple eyed, non-evolved bunny started sniffing the reflection from the other end. "Nicole, everyone knows there's none of those left. The only non-evolved forms of any creature left are bears and eagles, and there's only a few of those. The rest have killed all of their less evolved selves from embarrassment. You of all people should know that." The bunny seemed to scowl and with a blur turned into a woman who was well into her 20's.

"Hello Winfield. Good to see you're still alive. How are you?" Nicole said. She had dark brown hair that was just past her shoulders and had purple. She wore regular clothes and had a very sharp knife at her belt.

"Not good. Have you looked at the sky yet?" Nicole shook her head. "It's coming."

"Wait. It? As in, It?" Nicole asked, now frightened.

"Yes." Winfield said as if trying to keep a straight face after hearing he was going to die in an hour.

"Crap! I need to get down there! Which bottle was it?" Nicole asked as she frantically ran in and out of the reflection.

"The canteen with the blue cap. Last I was there it was in a pile with all the other ones in the closet."

"Right," and with that the reflection disappeared. Winfield sighed, looked back up at the sky and frowned again.

The night shifts had mostly been penguins because they were on different time but Mega and Luther had mostly been the ones out and talking. Luther had talked with him until the faint light of the sun peeping over the mountains around the valley he decided he better not skip a night of sleep and went off to sleep for the next two hours or so until it was completely bright. When one of his soldiers came in to wake him up, half sleeping he grabbed the soldier by the shirt, pulled him to his face and said in a rather drunk sounding voice, "Mama! These cookies are scrum-didily-umptious!" The soldier screamed and ran out of the tent, leaving Luther to lie half of his bed making chewing noises and occasionally going. "Hmmm. These are goooooood." Mega pushed the curtain open and walked in. The second he laid eyes on Luther drooling and opening and closing his mouth he burst out laughing. This woke Luther up and when he found what he was doing he started to laugh too.

Mega looked at him and said, "Do you always scare your men when you sleep?" At this he and Luther laughed some more and then Luther got out of bed and got ready. Once he was he went outside to meet Mega, who was looking out at Dinton. He saw a man run up to the top of the wall and grab a spyglass. He watched as the man looked at the sky but when he started to look in his direction Mega yelled, "Get down!" Everyone ducked immediately, dropping what ever they had and waited for arrows to come flying in or an ambush, but none came. Mega looked through a bush and saw the man looking away, and then put the spyglass down and leave. Mega sighed and stood up.

He went to Luther and told him, and then Luther said, "What did he look like?" Mega told him what he saw and Luther sighed and said, "Winfield." Mega looked shocked. He was surprised to see that the 'evil, powerful and terrible' Winfield was such a regular-sized creature, but he said nothing. He just looked back at Dinton and sighed.

Sam woke up feeling great for the first time in what felt like forever. He looked around and saw white drapes swinging back and forth from the warm breeze that came from out the window. He climbed out of his bed and looked outside and saw the ocean. He sighed and wished he had a house here that he could came and live in. He leaned against the wall and rested his head on his wing. As he watched a black spot appeared on the horizon. At first it was too small to tell what it was but as it got closer he realized what it was, it was a ship. But it was different than any other ship he had seen. It was small, sleek and wasn't made of wood. It made a loud humming noise and water splashed from behind it. A human was standing up, steering it and pushing a lever down and as he did it sped up. The man wore black glasses and there were some people with him, two kids and a woman who may have been the man's wife. They talked cheerily and they sped for the island. Sam started to freak out and he ran to find Zaron. When he past the paintings they were yelling, "Alert! Alert! Outside being coming!" Sam heard them but in his hurry he didn't really bother to listen to them. He found Zaron in just as a frantic mood as Sam. He was scurrying around, looking for something. "What's happening?" Zaron ignored Sam until he found what he was looking for. He grabbed a note, slipped it into his robe pocket and ran into the living room which was at the center of the house. There Tom, Spike, Kenny and Shadow stood, wondering what the paintings were talking about and why they were even talking.

Zaron ran in the middle of them and said, "Link hands, now!" Everyone did and Zaron said, "Aslo met yofla ke Cave of Dragons!" Everything went white then he appeared back in the cave.

Everyone calmed down and Sam asked Zaron, "What _the hell_ was that?" he screamed.

"It will take years to understand this but I'll try to do as best as I can and you'll just have to try to understand. This is not the real world. This is _under _the real world. That place we were in, it's not called Bedwando, it's called Hawaii. Talking animals like us don't exist up there. There aren't even animals our size, they're all smaller. The non-evolved ones we see are just regular animals up there who accidentally got down here. Humans haven't because there's a magical barrier blocking them. But, because of the animals that have gotten down here Entiron had to make more of them down here so things wouldn't become suspicious. The thing is, we're so unheard of that we're the kind of thing the humans write stories about and people listen or read and say 'yeah, right.' "That ship coming was called a 'speedboat.' Up there they have technology beyond what we can imagine. Their technology surpasses our magic, excepting a few cases. The main thing about this is, the gods we know, they don't even know this, they are just servants of the one true god. That one god is called 'Entiron.' It is the god of everything and anything. It made this place we call home because it thought that the animals deserved a chance, but up there, even with our ability to think, we would be _slaughtered_, _massacred, annihilated. _Entiron knew that so he made this place. Our valley is all that exists of this except the Land of Ice, which recently was destroyed. The Endless Ocean really _is_ endless. That's there to keep us here. That sun, its light is coming through the ground above which was changed so it would let that light through. That we were house was built by my ancestors but when the humans found it they figured it was just a house to buy. So, they did. So I placed those talking paintings there to warn me. That note, I just can't have them finding evidence of me even being there. I'm not sure if you believe me but this is all real. I've even met Entiron. The amazing part is, we are more connected to the other world than you think. When we die, we will be reborn up there as the same type of animal we are down here, even for humans. Only the creatures here that don't exist up there are turned into something else.But we don't remember our lives down here when we go up there, and when we die up there we go to a place that Entiron will not even tell me of. So when you kill some one you are giving them life, only a new one." Sam remembered what Mary had told him and now knew what she meant. "Now, you must never tell anyone of this. No one! Now, this note is what Entiron says is going to happen and it's not meant for you. Now, maybe you should go check on your friends like you said you wanted to," and with that Zaron pulled out his letter and walked off into the cave, leaving Shadow, Spike, Sam, Kenny and Tom to their thoughts.

Winfield sat on a stone bench in the courtyard until Nicole teleported in front of him. She was wearing black robes that hung low, even on her arms. She looked around and when she spotted him she elegantly walked over to him with a long stride. Winfield looked up and said hi. He then informed her on exactly what he said he saw. Nicole asked if she could see it herself and Winfield showed her. She frowned the same way he had and they went back to the courtyard to ponder what they should do. After about two or three hours of thinking and having a meal brought to them, they decided to inform the king and have as many of the soldiers of Elstac as possible be sent to Dinton. Winfield sent a messenger out to Elstac and Winfield introduced Nicole to Amanda. They got along fine and they all practiced archery together then they sparred for awhile until the messenger came back late afternoon. He had been hurt slightly on the shoulder, it looked like a talon mark and on his left leg his shoe had been cut open in the front, revealing a missing toe. The messenger reported, "Elstac was under attack. They had been trying to get messengers here but were killed every time. The moles and eagles were attacking. One eagle tried to pick me up," he pointed to his shoulder, "but I cut him in half before I was two feet from the ground. Then I was attacked from below by a mole that got my toe but I got his head. I then talked with Admens himself who said that they had been under siege for days but they were winning and would be fine. The only problem was they can't send anyone. We're alone." Winfield nodded and called for some medics to help the man.

Winfield turned to Nicole and Amanda and said, "The age of war comes to a close."

Mega had been sitting there, looking at Dinton, watching the humans' trade shifts, talk, play games or one even fell asleep. Mega wondered how such strange creatures could be that powerful to last for four years with no allies. Mega had never seen a human before but they looked "_Useless,"_ Mega thought. "_They have no fur except on their head, some even have none. They look particularly weak, they don't look like they can fly, or have sharp claws or teeth, look like bad swimmers, and they are puny and obviously have bad hearing if they still haven't noticed us, even with their spyglass. What is it about these things that make them so amazing?" _Mega thought. His thoughts were interrupted when Luther came over and handed him a plate of cheese and crackers and some fish (which never really evolved.) Mega reluctantly took it, gobbled down the fish and looked at the cheese as if it an alien. Luther laughed and told him to cut some of the cheese and put it on the crackers. Mega did and almost put it in his mouth, hesitated, then shoved it down. Luther watched him chew and waited.

Mega looked at him and said, "This is," he took another bite of it and through a mouthful said, "amabing!" Luther laughed and offered him if he wanted more and Mega nodded vigorously. Luther left to get more while Mega ate what was on the plate. He looked back at Dinton and froze, a soldier was staring right at him with a spyglass. He watched as the soldier dropped the spyglass, letting it clunk to the ground and fall off the side of Dinton and land in the mud, and run off screaming, "There's bird…things!"

Everyone was still stunned. Finally Spike said, "Well, there's something you don't hear every day." Everyone ignored the comment and stood up. Sam started to walk out of the cave, hopping to get his mind off what he had just heard. It was turning out to be a very interesting day for him. Sam decided that it would be best to check to see if Mega was alright, but when he got outside it seemed that everyone was okay. _"Well, seems we made it through that flood well. Maybe things will turn out alright."_ He stood at the mouth of the cave and watched the men going around as if nothing was wrong, they shouldn't have. Sam then saw Mega come sprinting out from where he had been sitting in the trees screaming. "Or not." Sam said aloud.

What Mega was screaming soon became clear in Sam's ears, "The humans know we're here! Or, me at least." Mega muttered when he was done screaming. He spotted the cave and saw Sam in it, "Everyone, get the stuff into that cave, hurry!"

Winfield was about to shoot for his twelfth bull's-eye in a row when he heard the soldier scream right as he let go and the arrow shot far over the target and Winfield heard some one yell, "What the _hell _was that?" Winfield sighed and he, Nicole and Amanda ran off to see what the soldier was screaming about.

"Bird-thing?" Winfield laughed, "Was it evolved?" Winfield asked when he got to the sentry.

"Well, I'm not sure, I've never seen something like this before," the sentry said.

"What did it look like?"

"Well, it looked like a fat chicken in a tux. It didn't have any feathers."

"Bird in a tux?" Amanda said, "I read a book written by some mage from the castle library I stayed at on birds that was described like that looked like that. They were called, 'pen sins,' or no, like, 'pengems.' Wait, no! It was 'penguins!' I remember now." They were from another dimension, like the Land of Nice or something. They were ice and water dwelling creatures who love fish. They all have super powers and there are very few of them, around 973. They usually use their powers as weapons but sometimes they use spears or bows and arrows." Amanda smiled, very proud of herself.

"You remember that but not the names?" Winfield asked.

"I'm bad with names," Amanda shrugged.

"Okay then. Penguins. So why or how they got here is not important but the fact they are is. That's another enemy, and maybe the enemy It is talking about. The part where It says, 'the power of few will bring doom upon you.' I think this is what It was talking about," Winfield said, Nicole nodded. "I think we should stay here. We don't want to make an unnecessary enemy, and we can't leave here because he could be attack while we are gone."

"Yes, possibly. But for all we know they could just go and live by the Endless Ocean and leave us alone, since you said they live in watery and fish filled areas. Who knows. If we are going to follow that book then we had better get ready, because it's coming, whether we try stop it or not."

_16_

_Ready or Not_

Everyone was huddled in the cave, silently waiting for something to came and attack. Something did. A bird in strange robes came out and Sam recognized it at once, Mary. But he did nothing, afraid to give her away. "Hello, I am Sye, and I wish to aid you in your oncoming fight."

Everyone looked at her and finally Mega said, "Whatever, another fighter won't hurt." Then Sye went into the cave in search of Zaron and disappeared, after, of course, Shadow pulling her to the side and asking her if she was who Zaron was talking about and she nodded, then disappeared. Then after what seemed like an hour the tension seemed to leave everyone and Mega got out and crawled over to the bushes and looked over. No one was coming, no sentry looking, it seemed no one really cared. Mega sighed and signaled to the others that it was okay to come out. Luther came out and talked to Mega. "Hey. Looks like we caught a break. You know, we have over 2,000 mouths to feed, we better do something." Luther stated solemnly.

"And I know what that shall be," said a voice from behind. It was Zaron.

"Who are you?" Luther asked.

"I am the last remaining Dragon Priest. My master foresaw what was to happen but I'm going to make sure it does. There's a force of 7,000 on its way. It has no idea that it's going meet with you but it will. You will attack Dinton the day they arrive, then, on the seventh day of the siege you will be reinforced, which is something I will also need to push. Now, rally your men for battle, for the army nears." With that Zaron smiled, mutter something and disappeared. Mega and Luther both frowned and weren't sure if they believed him. Some one read their minds.

"Believe him." Luther and Mega turned to see Sam. "He had brought me to see the bigger picture. He will help us. So ready for battle, for the end of the war nears." Mega nodded and went to ready his men, Luther wasn't so sure. Sam wanted Luther to trust him so he did what he never thought he would do, bring up the subject of his father. "Your father, Lain, he was a great man. I had the pleasure of meeting him a few times when he served my father. It was a terrible thing that they were both slain. But we are the new generation. We are the generation here to revenge our fathers and end this war, are you with me? Because if you aren't we have lost a great group of soldiers." Luther listened and when Sam finished he almost smiled.

"I'm with you."

Winfield was staring at the wall in his tower room, wearing the nicest armor in all of the kingdoms. It was light enough to move quickly but heavy enough to stop a blow to the chest. He swung his black sword around over and over again, practicing. The door swung open but Winfield didn't even turn to see who it was. "Est jrov few drom, est drom few jrov." Winfield turned and saw Nicole leaning against the door.

"What?" Winfield questioned.

"Est jrov few drom, est drom few jrov," Nicole repeated. "There's death in life, there's life in death. Your sword, that's what the engraving means. You know, there's a lot to that. This is where the Book ends, we decide our fate now. And if we die fighting we will find life. I believe we will go somewhere great once we die. I felt vibrations from the north, an army is moving forth. I'd say we have less than a few hours before the siege begins. We need to rally the men." Winfield nodded at this and strode past her holding his helmet, sword and bow and his quiver slung over his shoulder, it was time for war.

Everything started to shake around them, things falling from high places. A thumping noise filled the valley. The massive army of weasels marched without a word, holding their spears high and their bows ready. The weasels wore only their black fur and a belt with brown leather packs attached to it and their weapons strapped to their back, for they considered themselves kamikazes, there only to kill until killed. There were about 6,000 of them, marching behind their general who rode on a trembal, which was a massive lizard with sharp teeth, a spiked tail, amazing senses and extreme speed if needed. It stood only about 4 feet above the ground with its spiked tongue flicking in and out of its mouth. Its bright yellow eyes shifted as it spotted Dinton. The general, King Shade, (the weasels never had last names) noticed the trembal's shift of instead of looking around stayed fixed on one place. "Dinton, 2 miles ahead, ready yourselves, my son's death shall be avenged!" Shade screamed as his army picked up speed from a walk to a speed walk. When Dinton came into sight they started to jog. Something was standing in-between them and Dinton. It was a cat, who wore robes and held a massive book in his arm, he held up the other indicating them to stop. Shade signaled to his army to stop and he rode forward to speak with this cat. The cat spoke first, "King Shade, I expected none the less."

"What's that supposed to mean? And who are you?" The King said angrily.

"I am a Dragon Priest. There is a group of about 2,000 that wishes to fight along side you in the battle to end Dinton. It is a mix of chickens and penguins, and your son." Shade couldn't speak, he had thought his son was killed when he left on his mission and the whole reason he was here was to end the war _for _his son.

"My son?" Shade finally said, "He's alive?" Zaron nodded. "And chickens? You expect me fight alongside chickens?" Shade said angrily.

"I don't expect you to, I know you will. It is your son's wish. In your hands you hold the decision to bring this terrible war to a close. Besides, in a couple of days another army will come to your aid. The 2,000 men await you in the forest, now I must leave, for I have matters to attend to." Zaron disappeared, leaving Shade astonished. After a while his captain came up to him and asked him if they should get moving again. "Yes," Shade said, "But not towards Dinton, to that forest, and no questions."

A black mob appeared on the horizon as Sam and Mega were talking and looking out at the valley. Sam immediately knew who it was, it was the 6,000 Zaron said would come, the prophecies were right. Sam and Mary had been watching and talking, both trying to make out what creatures were going to save them, but because they were dark black creatures he was unable to make them out, yet he knew he had seen them before. Shadow walked up beside him to see and Sam's brain sparked, "Weasels!" Sam yelled, "Weasels are the ones coming to help us fight this war! Shadow, do you recognize that leader in front?"

Shadow squinted and said, "Father! What is _he _doing here?"

"Your father is the one coming to help us? I thought he was a sworn enemy of chickens."

"Yes, maybe he doesn't know that we are here yet. I shall go meet him." With that Shadow slithered away out to meet his father.

A black, snake like thing ran towards Shade's army on all fours, Shade recognized him at once, it was his son. Shade spurred his trembal and he flew forward. Once he was close enough Shade jumped off and picked up his son and hugged him. Shadow smiled but pushed away. "Dad, there's no time for this. We need to attack, today. Don't ask why I know this but if we don't everything will go wrong. Now, it seems you are rallied and ready, now meet your new allies." Shadow then turned and quickly went back to the trees, he came back followed by over 2,000 animals who were led by Sam, Luther, Mega and Mary, who was standing next to Sam, all ready for war. They talked about what tactics they should use, then got into ranks and started to march.

Winfield had organized his men, three ranks of 1,500 around the gate for when it broke open, two ranks of 2,000 on the walls with bows or crossbows, he had six groups of mechanics working six different catapults, one ballista with a group of mechanics, two men standing in front of the wild animal cage door which was on the side of Dinton, ready to unleash them, his cavalry of 1,500 was behind Dinton waiting for the signal and beside them was Amanda, Taka and the gryphons, all ready to fight. Winfield stood at the top of the wall, looking back at all his men, his lexal skin armor shone brightly in the sun, his golden tassels hung off his shoulders from the epaulets. He had engraved in gold on his chest plate that showed a golden person standing above the bodies of animals and humans. With all of this he stood out greatly in his army. Winfield spoke down to anxious men, "Soldiers, friends and some even family, today is that last of many, animal and human. All these nine years come to here, this moment. Are we going to fail those who have fallen for us to be here now?" Winfield echoed throughout Dinton.

"NO!" His soldiers roared back.

"Well then. Many great battles we have fought, some won and some lost, but now. This moment, we shall not falter, we shall not lose, FOR WE ARE THE HUMAN RACE!" Winfield yelled, raising his sword high above his head.

"YEAH!" The soldiers cried back. Winfield nodded.

"So, who are we?"

"The human race!"

"Who will we defeat?"

"The animals!"

"What?"

"THE ANIMALS!"

"WHO ARE WE?"

"WE ARE THE HUMAN RACE! YEAH!" The soldiers answered while holding their swords above their head, screaming at the top of their lungs. Nicole came up behind Winfield and put her hand shoulder, "You did good. Now let's do this, and let's do it right. Our destiny, not the book's, remember that."

Winfield nodded and turned back to the army moving towards Dinton, "Bring it on."

The army had also split into ranks, the weasels had five ranks of 600 all spread out so they were less likely to be hit by an arrow. The penguins made there own rank and the chickens had two ranks. The swordsmen were in front and archers in back. They marched solemnly knowing that before this was over, that almost all of the people around them would die. Sam walked silently, with the thought that killing some one would just give them new life, not _really_ kill them. His sword was swing back and forth in the sheath, yearning for the blood of humans. Tom and Kenny ran up beside him, both very ready for the fight. Tom had his daggers all lined up on a belt that had been made by one of the penguins for him. Kenny held his bow already notched and seemed more serious than ever in his life. Tom spoke first, "So, this is it."

"No, it's not. It's only the beginning, remember, this siege goes on for two more days." Tom nodded in remembrance. "Hey, Kenny, you ready."

"Well, I guess. I just feel, I feel, I guess… I guess this is the first time my stupidity impulse isn't raging. It's feels… wrong. But hey, we can't always get what we want." The army stopped just barely in arrow distance.

Sam called up to Winfield, "Hey, Winfield. You don't know me but I sure as hell know you." Winfield peered down at Sam, who took out his sword and raised it above his head.

"Ahh. Scott's son. What a… pleasure. Well, would you like to do the honors?" Sam sighed and turned back to Tom and Kenny.

Kenny laughed and said, "Well, I guess I might as well find out how good this thing really is." Kenny pulled back the arrow and shot it his into the air, all 20,000 eyes watched as it rose and when it reached its peak it launched itself towards Dinton. Winfield's smile disappeared as the arrow flew right towards him.

"Get down!" He yelled as he dove behind a wall as the arrow slammed into the wall he had dove behind. It caught fire and Winfield looked at it and yelled, "Fire!" A flurry of arrows shot forward, followed by six flaming pots and a massive iron arrow. The two soldiers opened the pen and ran for their lives and the gryphons launched themselves into the air. Taka hesitated, but Amanda patted her on the back and she launched herself, too. The animals dispersed as to get away from the arrows but many were shot, caught on fire or hit by the ballista's arrow, which ran through seven different weasels. 20 massive hound like creatures bolted from the pen and threw themselves into the ranks of the animals so they could end the hunger because the humans hadn't fed them for a while. They were brown creatures with black spots and massive claws and sharp teeth, they had no real tails and had blood red eyes. They ranged from six feet to ten feet long and could jump very far. The animals were caught be surprise by many things, the gryphons, the hounds and the millions of projectiles firing at them, but the fought on. Arrows were soon answered by arrows right back at them. The weasel's accuracy was amazingly better than the humans and soon the archers on the walls of Dinton had to fall back. Sam and Kenny were firing arrows into Dinton and Tom was throwing his knives, which always came back to him, bloodstained. The hounds massacred and dispersed an entire rank before they were brought down, but soon the soldiers of Dinton were trapped inside their own fort, waiting and firing their catapults and the ballista. The only thing that kept the humans from being stormed was their walls and their men above.

Taka swooped down, inhaling on the way and once low enough she unleashed a storm of fire and more soldiers were killed. Gryphons would swoop down long enough to run a few through with their claws and pick up another few, only to drop them at a height and go back out of arrow firing range. Luther angrily watched as a gryphon swooped down onto his men. He sprinted towards it as it came lower and lower and when he was under it he jumped up and grabbed its leg. He swung himself on top of the gryphon and came face to face with its rider. He pulled out his sword and faced the person who was desperately trying to throw Luther off but couldn't. Luther edged towards him, and when he was close enough he stabbed the man and threw him off. He then took controls of the gryphon and he had it charge at another gryphon. When he flew right to the side he leapt from his gryphon to the other and landed on the back of the gryphon. The person didn't even realize that Luther was behind him so Luther just stabbed him and pushed him off also.

Mega was standing in front of the gate, bashing it ferociously with his hammer. The gate would not give, no matter what any one did and they were forced the retreat, for if they just sat there getting hit by arrows and catapults they would lose. Mega pulled out a horn he had made and blew it. All the animals turned and retreated, though many were hit by arrows on the run. Taka stopped breathing fire on the animals and turned back to Dinton.

Luther did not here the horn from so high up so he kept going at it. As he flew low over Dinton a flurry of arrows hit his gryphon and it started to drop. Luther jumped off and landed on the wall of Dinton, surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of human soldiers. Winfield came out and ordered them not to attack. "Well, well, well. Luther, I think I've met you before. Oh, yes. I shot you in the neck, what a pleasure to get to do it again." Winfield smiled but Luther snarled back.

"You can kill me but the future is ours, not yours!" Luther yelled so everyone could here.

"Well, if it is, then its not yours," he gestured to him and the retreating animals, "it's just theirs. Fare the well." Winfield gave the mark and Luther was attacked by all the humans surrounding him. He tried to fight back but only managed to kill two before he was run through the chest many times. Luther fell and his knees, looked up and Winfield and smiled. Luther then fell over dead, leaving Winfield baffled.

Sam stood next to a fire holding out his shivering wings. He stood next to Mega, Kenny, Tom and some of the soldiers. Sam shivered as he spoke, "I wonder if Luther made it out of there. Because he's not here, that's for sure." Mega sat down on a log that had been set before the fire as a seat, he was not cold at all, even though it was night time and there was no sun to give heat. A couple of soldiers left and went into some of the leather tents that were set up around. The camp had been set up only a couple hundreds of yards away from Dinton, but just far enough that they could not be attacked by arrows and they had watches who were weasels who were trained to see in the dark. The rest of the soldiers left and Shade came up to the fire and put his hands in front of it. Tom held the one of his dagger's blade in the fire, and soon he pulled it out and held it between his palms and chest. He sighed in relief as the heat from the metal warmed him up. Sam and the others caught on and followed Tom's lead. As if on cue everyone pulled out their weapon, held it closed and sighed. Finally Sam said, "Well, I think Luther was lost, so some one should take command of his army."

"You should," Shade said and everyone nodded in agreement, "You seem to have your father's skill of war in you, so I believe it is only right for you to take command." Sam nodded in thanks but was too cold to talk.

Tom eventually said, "Do you guys believe we have a chance at this? I mean, do we really have a chance at beating down Dinton?"

"No," Shade said plainly, everyone was taken back, they had hoped for a more reassuring answer. "That's why when Mega couldn't bring down the gate I sent a messenger back to Theerandor to have an engineering squad sent up here with supplies. So, as soon as they get here we have a chance."

Sam finally was warm enough to speak after holding his hot sword close to him, "Well, until then we should try to keep them subdued. We should cut off all the ways they have out of there."

"Yes, but what do we do about them flyers? We have nothing that can fly and nothing to reach them when they are that high up," Tom stated. Sam sighed unhappily.

"Well, what happened to Zaron?" Sam asked.

"He disappeared saying he had things to do after he talked with me. Maybe he has ditched us," Shade said.

"No, no, he wouldn't do that. He's getting reinforcements," Sam said with sudden enthusiasm.

"What makes you say that?" Kenny asked, "How do we know that he and his dragon didn't back to Bedwando, or, _Hawaii_, or whatever he said?" Kenny said, making his voice sound very high pitched and annoying when he said Hawaii.

"Because he said another force will come, I think he's getting that force," Sam said, "So, Shade, make sure that your nightshifts down fall asleep or something because we all need to sleep, tomorrow is another siege."

_17_

_Here We Come_

Winfield was up and having his men train before the sun even rose. He had men switching off holding torches so his men would be ready for a fight, unlike yesterday which Winfield felt he had lost. He was not planning to lose today, he planned to win everyone other battle and if this was they only way to do it then so be it. Winfield left the training grounds and went to the tower to watch the sun rise. He sighed when the rising sun revealed the animal camp. They were already rising and running about, getting ready to attack once more. The book had ended so Winfield had no expectations as to what would happen. He looked out and watched a weasel go sprinting out of the camp screaming, and then fall over, dead. _Ahh, nothing like Shade's way of treating a coward,_ Winfield thought as Shade came out of the camp to pull something out of the coward's neck._ So, he still uses his circlets. You can always count on Shade to stay original,_ Winfield thought again as Shade walked back into his camp. When all the sun's light had finished pouring into the valley Winfield turned back into Dinton to make sure the catapults were set up. When he made sure that was going to happen he walked up to Amanda's room and knocked on the door.

"Come in," came Amanda's voice. Winfield walked in, "Oh, Winfield, it's you."

"Who else would it be?"

"Nicole, she's coming up here in- Oh, here she is now." Winfield turned around and Nicole stood in the doorway.

"Hello people. How goes it?" Nicole asked.

"You tell me. I think we have the upper hand in this battle but we sure didn't show it yesterday. We need to step it up," Winfield said with authority.

"So I see, looks like you already took the honors of making sure that happened," Nicole said, pointing to soldiers outside training. A horn blew loudly and echoed through Dinton.

"And, my dear Nicole, _that_ is why."

Sam was standing in front again, next to Mary, Tom and Kenny. "You know, I swear that I've before, Sye. You remind of some one from school, _only it's a girl you remind me of,_" muttered Tom.

"Now is not the time, _Tom_. You are about to enter a battle and talking about recognizing people is not the way to start it," Mary pointed out, trying to have the most manly voice as possible. "Sam, you ready?" Sam nodded and drew his swords and Mary drew hers, and then they stepped forward to speak to Winfield.

"Hey, Winfield! Get out here!" Sam yelled, it echoed throughout Dinton like it was a ghost town. "Winfield!"

Sam's yell was finally answered, "Fire!" A flurry of black shafts appeared in the once was blue sky and fell down on the soldiers.

"Arrow position!" Shade cried and every weasel held up their shield, creating a barrier above them and blocking the arrows. The chickens followed their lead and held up their shields, causing no one to be harmed. Then a clicking noise and the sound of something large being thrown was heard and massive pots with flaming hay inside flew through the air and exploded on the shields and lighting them on fire. They had to drop their shields and protect themselves. The animals got themselves back together and fired back, causing the men standing on the wall to flee, die and fall off or get knocked off by the other people frantically trying to get away from the rain of arrows. The gryphons and Taka brought themselves from the ground and flew towards the animals. Amanda had her bow and arrows ready this time so she, too, could fight the animals. Taka swooped down and picked up a group of weasels in her claws and crushed them between her talons. The gryphons dove in and out of the ranks, eating or stabbing with their missive claws while their riders shot down arrows.

Winfield and a group of his best leapt down in front of Dinton with their swords drawn. Every animal turned to them, Winfield smiled and charged. His men followed as he jumped sword first into the chickens and weasels. Sage was there too, and he stayed back slightly, hoping to make it alive out of there. Mary ran forth to challenge him because of his cowardliness. "You, fight me!" Mary screamed at him.

"Hah! You're just a wimpy chicken, I'll beat you any day."

"Well then today is you're lucky day. Atslo'kall!" Mary screamed and she morphed into four, then her copies repeat, "Atslo'kall!" over and over again until there was over 100 of Marys, they all smiled and ran at Sage. Sage screamed but tried to fight as to not look stupid. A Mary stabbed him back it went right through him, _The copies can't hurt me! Now all I have to do is find the right one, _Sage thought.

Sam came out to face Winfield, "You and I have something to finish," Sam said angrily.

"Please, you and I both know that we are just getting started! Now, let's see how you are!" Winfield swung his sword powerfully at Sam who blocked it right in front of his own face. Sam growled and forced Winfield's sword away and swung back at him. Winfield easily stepped to the side, as he did with the many wild swings Sam threw at him. Winfield smiled, "You are letting your anger guide you, perfect." Sam stopped to catch his breath.

"No, I'm, not!" Sam screamed as he threw an uppercut with his sword at Winfield, missed and brought it back down, cutting Winfield on his cheek. Winfield's smiled left and he too got angry. He jumped at Sam and swung hard, but Sam parried it and swiped at Winfield's legs, who leapt over the strike and then kicked Sam hard, knocking him over on his stomach.

Tom threw his dagger at one knight on the ground after the other, almost having fun with it. Only a few knights had even seen his knives coming at them, and even fewer able to get out of the way. Kenny shot arrow after arrow with extreme speed, hitting target after target. He stood next to Tom and when Tom noticed Sam on the ground and screamed, Kenny followed Tom over to where Winfield was about to strike him. "Hey! Touch him and we kill you!" Tom threatened with his daggers and Kenny threatened with his bow. Winfield looked around and saw he had lost most of the men who he had come down with.

"Well, looks like I'm done here anyway," Winfield pulled out his hook shot and smiled at Sam who had gotten up but was stumbling, "Ta ta!" Winfield aimed his hook shot up, fired and was pulled up and over the walls over Dinton. This was the cue, all who humans who remained pulled theirs out and flew up after Winfield, leaving the animals to see how badly the knights who came over the wall had beaten them.

Mary launched herself at Sage and when she was about to strike him and pulled out his hook shot and fire, "I would love to stay and play guess which one but I have other things to do!" With that Sage disappeared over the wall with the rest.

The battle didn't go on for much longer. Soon the horn signaling the retreat was sounded and the animals fell back to their camp.

It was dark again and the same people huddled around the fire. Sam sighed and said, "This battle is only supposed to go on for one more day if the prophecies are right, that means we lose or win tomorrow, and without your siege team we can't do anything."

"Oh… about that, I got a message, umm," Shade stuttered.

"Go on," Tom urged.

"Well, the siege team was ambushed and killed, we're on our own."

"It's too bad we can't call on some other force to come help us," Kenny stated.

"That's it!" Sam pulled out the lightning horn that was given to him from Illumini, "I can call the gods!"

"You can what?" Shade exclaimed.

"This was given to me by Illumini, I can call him in my time of need."

"Well, you sure have some connections," Shade said.

"So, the plan is we attack with everything we've got tomorrow, the gods, all our supplies, anything that could be used as a weapon." Everyone nodded in agreement and dispersed to their tents.

Winfield had his men up just as early the next morning as he had the one before, and when to sun started to rise he saw something beyond the camp of the animals, it was another army. A large black dragon stood at the front of it and the rest was too far away to see what it was. He ran and grabbed a spyglass and looked out to see almost 2,000 massive raptor like creatures standing in a line. They were dark pink with blue markings all over them and beads draped all over them. Their hind legs alone were almost as big as Winfield because of the amount of muscle they had in them, which made up for their stubby arms they had. They creatures were about eight feet tall and had two massive talons on each foot that were about a foot long and curved up and down again while other nails stayed straight. Their massive teeth glistened when they smiled, showing the hunger for battle. Next to the raptor like creatures was an army of centaurs, all holding bows or axes, or some even nothing for they knew magic. Winfield sighed and said aloud, "Centaurs and kalos and a dragon, oh my."

Sam watched the army walk over the hill and knew at once who it was, Zaron. He had come, now they had a chance. He ran out to them to greet them. "Zaron, you came!" Sam yelled joyfully when he finally found him. "Yeah, and Serk even got the centaurs to help, only he agreed to stop eating them."

"What are those pink things?" Sam asked.

"Those are kalos. They can jump almost a kilometer into the air and land it unharmed. They are amazing creatures, and they can talk, though they are hard to understand." As if on cue a kalo with a massive gryphon feather on his head ran over to them.

"General Sam, we are ready for battle. Ready your men and we shall end this," said the kalo.

"Hard to understand, huh?" Sam muttered to Zaron.

"Kihe's had practice, he's their leader."

"And general?"

"I told them that so they'd give you respect. Now, go ready the men, it's time."

Sam had the men ready in less then an hour, all standing beside the centaurs and kalos. Winfield watched as a brown, black, pink and white force moved closer to Dinton. The horn had already sounded so all his men were ready to finish the war once and for all. A black dragon took off from the mob and stayed high above the army. Once they were close Sam came out and looked up at Winfield, "Well, I say we finish this, we're not going to retreat. This is it, and may I say, no matter how much I hate you, you have fought bravely and led brilliantly." Sam bowed and stepped back into the armies. Winfield was taken back but he kept himself from saying anything. He turned and went down with his army.

He sighed and let his war side take over, "Ready!" His archers pulled up their bows, "Aim!" They pulled back their strings, "Fire!"

For the third time a flurry of arrows fell down on the animals, but they didn't need to be told again to put their shields up, they did right when the sounds of bow strings rang. Something was different about this time thought, there were only three catapult shots and no ballista. They immediately took advantage of this and started their assault back on Dinton. Weasels and chickens got on kalos and the kalos jumped high into the air, landing hard on the walls of Dinton where they attacked the archers that were there. Sam got on Kihe and he launched high into the air, they quickly landed, cracking the ground on which they landed and Sam hopped off, letting Kihe lung at the nearest enemy. He tore the person's throat and jumped on the next nearest one. Sam turned and sliced at the nearest human, cutting him on the chest. The person jumped back and dropped his bow and leapt at Sam with a sword. Sam moved to the side and cut sideways, slicing the person in half. Sam nearly threw up but managed when he saw another person lunged at him. Right when the person was going to stab Sam a kalo landed hard on the person, crushing him and killing him instantly. Shadow hopped off and nodded to Sam, who nodded back.

Mega swung his hammer madly, bashing humans and sending them screaming into the air. Human and human he sent into the air until he was surrounded and alone. He gulped as everyone of them charged but nothing happened and when Mega looked to see what had happened he saw the a group of penguins had come running and frozen the humans. Mega smiled and ran off to help out another group of animals.

The gryphons took off and almost were instantly killed by Serk who was flying right above them without them knowing it. Kalos started jumping into the air and attacking the gryphons who were helpless against the hit and run tactics. Taka flew up to meet Serk, Amanda wasn't on her back this time, Amanda was down below. Serk snorted, blowing smoke from his nose and lunged.

Sam jumped to a level below and attacked a few humans, easily winning with Shadow and Kihe with him. They slowly fought their way down to the courtyard with the help of some weasels and kalos. The centaurs were banging on the gate and Sam remembered his horn, he had to use it. "Cover me!" he yelled to Shadow as he pulled out his horn. Shadow nodded and ran next to him. Shadow sparred with a human while Sam inhaled and blew. The horn sounded more like a shriek than a horn and almost instantly the sky darkened. Lightning started striking down everywhere, lighting Dinton on fire and hitting humans, gryphons and even some animals.

Taka flew upward and then quickly dive bombed down onto Serk, smashing him downwards. Lightning flashed all around them, barely missing. Serk and Taka roared at each other and then Serk blew fire into Taka's face but it did nothing. He swiped at her with his claws and sliced her chest, creating a massive gash but she wouldn't let him go as they fell towards the ground. Then lightning flashed again and this time hit Taka in the back. She roared and let go, letting Serk free. He took advantage of this and flew above Taka, who was falling quickly, and body slammed himself into her sending her faster towards the ground. Taka roared but because of her massive blood loss was too weak to do anything. At about 100 feet above the ground Serk stopped pushing her down and watched as she finished her decent onto the needle of one of the towers of Dinton.

A booming noise stopped the battle as everyone watched one of the towers of Dinton start to shatter and falled, sending massive rocks and splinters everywhere. It crashed down into one of the walls, smashing it apart. Another lightning struck the gate of Dinton, allowing the centaurs and the remaining animals to pour in. The centaurs angrily ran in and trampled the helpless humans. Soon there were too many to keep trampling them and the humans and centaurs clashed, causing blood to soon covered the ground.

Amanda was fighting next to Winfield when the gate was broken. Amanda wheeled around and attacked the centaurs. She jumped up on a centaur and when another tried to hit her with its massive axe Amanda expertly jumped onto another centaur, letting the heavy axe kill the centaur she had just been on. She leapt from centaur to centaur until a kalo spotted her. It launched itself high into the air but Amanda saw it coming. She jumped onto another centaur, letting the kalo crushed the spine of the other centaur. The kalo looked angrily at Amanda and jumped at her again. She teased him and jumped to another centaur. The kalo faked jumping at her, causing Amanda to jumped to another centaur when the kalo was already waiting for her. She gasped and pulled out her bow and arrows and started firing rapidly at the kalo, who dodged without effort and jumped at her, digging its large curved talons into Amanda's chest, she screamed and started coughing blood and the kalo, still angry, sliced her throat with its claws. Amanda died instantly after that.

Nicole morphed into another dragon that was deep green and took off at Serk, roaring loudly and breathing fire everywhere. Serk was caught by surprise and was hit hard in the chest by Nicole's body slam. Nicole lashed out, failing her talons in all directions but missing. Serk dodged expertly and spun around, causing his massive spiked tail to fly around and collide hard with Nicole's neck. There was a loud cracking noise and Nicole went limp. When she died and started falling she automatically turned back to herself as he smashing into the ceiling of Dinton, spurting blood everywhere.

Shade ran in on the back of a centaur, holding his sword in one hand, his whip in the other. The jumped off as soon as he was past the gate and looked around for his first target. He spotted a person who was charging at him. He whipped the person in the wrist, causing him to drop his sword, then he whipped the sword and pulled it to him and he tossed it away. When the person tried to run while still rubbing his wrist Shade whipped at him and his whip latched around the person's ankle. The person screamed as Shade dragged the person towards himself and when the person was close enough he stabbed him with his sword. He turned around and saw another group of people charging him. Shade smiled, pulled out some circlets from his belt pack and flung them at the people, each one was hit in the neck and died instantly and the ones who weren't hit ran. Shade smiled again and ran to fight more humans.

Sam jumped down to meet Winfield. They looked at each other for a minute until Winfield lunged and Sam dodged pushed Winfield backwards, causing him to stab his sword into a boulder from the fallen wall. He attempted to pull it out but failed. Sam neared him, ready for the kill. Winfield turned and smiled, letting Sam get closer, "So, you think you got me, eh?" Winfield clenched his fists, causing his golden claws to come out of their arm bracers. "No, this ain't over yet." Winfield ran up some boulders and got onto the second level, and from there he jumped down at Sam, claws at ready. He sliced at Sam who moved barely, left and right as Winfield stuck madly. Winfield caused Sam to step backwards every time he dodged until he was stepping outside of Dinton. Winfield swung both arms and just barely missed when Sam tripped. Sam pulled from the mud the thing he tripped on to find it was a spyglass. He placed it in his off hand and so as to use it as a second weapon. Winfield stabbed hard downward but Sam rolled out of the way but Winfield hit Sam's sword and it the top of it shattered. Sam then jumped back up and put Winfield on the defensive side. He swung his sword and the spyglass until Winfield caught Sam's sword in his claws and pulled it from his hands he sending it over his shoulder and into the ground. This didn't stop Sam, he kept attacking with the spyglass until finally the spyglass hit Winfield in the chest, who got all the air knocked out of him and he panted loudly. Sam walked over to his sword, pulled it from the ground and moved close to Winfield to finished him. Sam said, "Good bye, Winfield."

Winfield looked up at him and said, "Yes, good bye," and he thrusted his claw into Sam's chest, causing blood to spill everywhere. Sam coughed, blood spurted from his beak. He fell onto his knees and dropped the spyglass. Winfield smiled. Sam looked up at him and before Winfield could do anything Sam screamed and with the last of his strength swung his sword at Winfield, cutting his legs from his torso. Winfield looked at Sam with wide eyes and fell over dead. Sam smiled and then he too, fell over dead.

The battle was soon won by the animals. They had captured most of the humans, including Sage, and the rest were killed or fled. Tom, Shadow, Mary, Zaron, Spike, Mega and Kenny were walking through the bodies, looking for Sam. Tom screamed and spotted Sam's body lying next to Winfield's. "Well, it looks like he did what he wanted," Shadow said as he walked over.

"No! Oh, good gods! Sam is dead! Wait, where is that potion Illumini gave him?" Tom rummaged through Sam's pack until he pulled out the potion. He unplugged it and poured it in Sam's mouth. Tom stepped back and waited. A couple of minutes passed and nothing still happened. Tom turned his back Sam's body and cried, everyone went to comfort him when they heard some one say, "What's the matter? We won!" They all turned to see Sam standing there, looking as pale as a chicken can look, but he was definitely alive. Tom jumped at him and hugged him. Sam smiled and hugged back. As soon as Tom let go Sam fell over, he was too weak to stand on his own. Tom ran over and helped him up again. "It's okay, everything will be okay…" Sam drifted off as he fell unconscious.

_18_

_Heading Home_

Sam had gone unconscious and when he woke up he found himself in his room back in Missair. Standing around him were all the people who had been looking for him and his mom. He smiled and sat up and hugged his mom, then he and asked, "How long have I been out?"

"About three or four days. You look a lot better than before. You do know you killed Winfield, right?"

"Yeah, I did. Well, I guess this means he's on to a life up above." Everyone nodded.

"Hey, Spike, where were you during those three days of battle?" Sam asked.

"I never fought, I stayed in camp and made sure everything went all right so you'd still have a camp to come back to." Sam got out of bed and went for the door.

"Where are you going?" Mega asked.

"I don't know." Sam walked outside to see his old neighborhood. He ran down the street and saw the Padfoot Ball minor league field. Then he ran down the street further and saw the professional stadium. Then he ran down to the main square where he saw his father's statue. Sam felt a hand on his shoulder, it was Mega.

"You know, this is all real. It's okay, it's all over, all but the award ceremony and the Ice Breaker Ceremony, which I want you to be at."

"Ice Breaker?"

"The breaking of that ice ball that makes our ice home. We are making it where Dinton was."

"Hey, what happened to Elstac?"

"There will be King Admens and a few of his advisors at the awards ceremony, after that they will discuss what will happen." Sam nodded.

A couple of weeks later Sam was standing in the middle of the Padfoot Ball stadium next to Tom, Kenny, Mega, Shadow, the medic and Zaron. In front of them was the King. Sam looked out to the crowd and saw King Admens sitting on a makeshift thrown with some humans around him. Shade was also in the crowd. Sam sighed and listened as the King started to speak. "Today we finally can say there is peace," the King started, "and we can thank these animals for that." He gestured the to the people on the stage. "Before I give these awards I would like to say this, Admens and I have already talked and decided that there shall never be a war again." The King held up a parchment and everyone cheered. "Elstac will be left at peace and so shall we. The war of the animals had ended too. King Shade assisted in the battle for Dinton and now we are at peace. Now, for the awards." Everyone cheered again, the crowds was weasels and chickens. The King picked up a small golden shield with a string on it, he placed it around Tom's neck and said, "Sir Tomas Chicken, for your bravery in battle and assisting Sam, we give you this award." Everyone cheered. "Sir Kentucky Chicken, for you bravery in battle and your assistance with Sam, we give you this award." He placed the medal around Kenny's neck and moved on. "Prince Shadowback of Theerandor, for your heroism on the battle field, we give you this award." Everyone cheered again, only they were losing enthusiasm. "Sir MegaPenguin, for your leadership of your men and help on the battlefield, we give you this." The cheering was even duller than before the Mega didn't noticed. "Katsvozaron, for your assistance in making sure peace was brought to the land, we give you this award." Almost no one cheered. "And Sam, for your leadership, bravery and skill we give you this award and we thank you for bringing us peace. And, I believe this belongs to you." The King handed Sam his father's sword, it was perfectly fixed. Sam looked out to see who it was and he saw Ross and Danny (though he didn't know who he was) and waved and smiled when Ross showed him a blacksmithing hammer. Everyone cheered loudly again, and soon everyone was standing and clapping. The King started to clap and everyone then clapped harder. Then when the ceremony ended a couple days later Sam went out to Dinton to watch as Mega placed the globe on an anvil with a half circle hole to size of the globe and smashed the globe with the hammer, sending a wave of ice and snow everywhere. A lake went around Dinton and Dinton turned into an ice castle that resembled Dinton only it had many icicles and ice spikes on the walls. Mega smiled and stepped out to the castle. Sam followed but stopped at the water. Something told him it would be alright and he stepped out to the water. His instincts were right, for when he stepped on the water ice formed under his feet and disappeared again when he took his foot off.

When he came back from the ceremony, after bidding Mega good bye and good luck, he went back to Missair and when he walked through the garden of Missair he saw his father's statue standing in front of the massive fountain, only something was different. There were three bronze statues on the other sides of the fountain, one of him standing proudly with his father's sword in one hand, another of Tom kneeling down with his daggers in his hand and Kenny looking over his shoulder with his bow loaded but aimed somewhat downward. The last was of Luther with his sword in both of his hands in front of him. Kenny and Tom came up behind him and put their hands on his shoulders and they all looked at the statues in admiration. Some one yelled something but they couldn't hear it well. Then they heard it again, "Hey, you guys, we need some more players for a game of Patfoot, you in?" They looked and it was Alex.

"Ya', we in!" Sam yelled back, he turned to the statues and said, "Gentlemen, welcome to the history books."

_The_

_End_

_Epilogue_

A couple of years after the war ended Sam asked Mary to marry him and she accepted. Zaron was their priest and they went to Bedwando for their honeymoon, but they got a house that no humans knew about. A couple years after their marriage they had a boy named Luther. Tom became a teacher in the art of knife throwing and Kenny became a teacher in the school he used to go to. Mega ruled the penguin clan and named their new home 'Javoryle' or 'House of the Gods.' When he died his brother, SteelHead took over. The clan over time grew into a full city of over 10,000. Mega was reborn as a penguin in the zoo. Zaron lived only a little longer after the war. With his destiny fulfilled he died happy and he was reborn as a house cat. Winfield was reborn as a kid named Charles who ended up being a general in the U.S. Army and marrying a woman named Jane, who was Amanda. Nicole was reborn as the next Harry Houdini as she preformed tricks that had never been heard of. Luther was reborn as a chicken but was soon killed for a chicken pie, so he went to heaven and there he stayed happily. Old Man Sam was reborn as an Olympic athlete and he won three gold medals and one silver in the long jump and the 100 meter dash. Shadow took over Theerandor when Shade died and he had a child named Dusk. Sage was let go after the treaty was officially signed and he left and was never seen again. Ross eventually took over the armory and he lived a good life. The kalos and centaurs started to work together and soon they had built a city that was all centaurs and kalos, with Kihe as the High Councilor. The valley never had another war again and the humans were soon accepted by the animals.

_**2**_

_**The Land of Ice**_

_1_

_Starting Off Fast_

Hundreds of years before The War of the Valley the Land of Ice had its own story to tell. The ice trolls, who controlled the Land of Ice at the time, were ruthless and evil leaders. Nothing could stand in their way, and whenever some one ran for safety, they were quickly captured, tortured, let rest, tortured again and then sent off the work in the underfarms, and never again seen again by the outside world. There were many tribes, clans or towns that attempted to stand in the trolls' way, but all were quickly crushed and sent to slavery, except one…

Chris K. Serpentina was a 19-year-old pale-green lizard with a white stomach and a long thin snout with two small, not fully grown-in fangs jutting from the sides of the snout. He lived in the town of Reptile Haven, which lie in the snow-covered mountains, everything else was snow covered too, making it hard for the trolls to go up there so attacks were rare. The people of Reptile Haven were once known as deadly assassins before the trolls came in. They were also skilled wizards or witches and were one of the most powerful cities, but when the trolls finally took over their hidden city it was destroyed and rebuilt as a small town. Over awhile their arts of stealth were forgotten and their town was left defenseless.

One day as Chris was walking on his hind legs down the snow-covered cobblestone street with his friend Alexa, he heard a scream, which was followed by another, and another. He and Alexa ran towards the scream and when they turned the corner, they froze and stepped back. In front of them they saw a raid of trolls attacking some different colored lizards and snakes. They were on the ground or giving the trolls what they had when an anaconda slowly slithered up behind them, ready to strike. Chris held his breath as the anaconda lunged but was struck down by a blue beam that was shot from the staff of one of the trolls. It smiled and turned back to his victims. Chris started to feel more uncomfortable because he felt like he knew these people, and it turned out he did. When a very small lizard turned in his direction with tears in its eyes he noticed it immediately as his sister. He gulped hard but knew he couldn't do anything unarmed. As the process went on he soon recognized also his father and mother. He almost ran out to help in anyway he could but Alexa stopped him. He sighed and he and Alexa got on all fours and crawled around silently to get a better view. They still couldn't hear what they were saying but everyone looked panicked. Chris, still anxious to find out what was going on, started to try to use the arts of camouflage, taught to him by a chameleon. He concentrated hard, straining his mind to pull the fragments of the memory of his teachings together. Soon the last piece of the puzzle placed itself in his mind and he started to blend in with the ground on which he lay. He silently place one claw in front of the other until he neared the hostage situation. Alexa stayed behind, staring with eyes that said all she wanted then was to be able to help, but she was never taught to use camouflage. Chris inched himself closer but accidentally kicked a rock, causing a troll to turn and look. The troll looked confused but another walked forward picked up a handful of dust and sprayed it across the ground where Chris was. Bits of Chris appeared in the dust and the troll smiled grimly. Chris looked up, quickly shook off the dust and tried to run but his foot prints were easily followed. Chris ran past Alexa's hiding spot behind the poll and when the trolls followed past the poll Alexa hesitated, but then leapt out and tackled one of the trolls, this was the cue. The rest of the town ran out at the trolls with any sort of weapon they could find. Snakes came out and started to poison some of the trolls, others just beat their hands. There were about 100 trolls to about a town of 7,000 but the trolls were much better equipped and trained and easily killed many.

Alexa landed on top of the troll and they fell into a clump on the ground. Alexa wrestled the troll for its staff as they rolled around, barking angry threats or insults at each other. When the troll had Alexa on top of him he kicked his legs up and threw Alexa behind him. Alexa fell into a roll but when she got up she smiled and held up in her claw a trembal talon knife that she had plucked off of the troll's belt right before she was thrown off. The troll didn't seem to care, for he now had the staff. Blue light started to form around the tip of the staff as the troll waved around his off hand. Alexa didn't wait, she ran at him on all fours and leapt into the air and dove downwards with the knife whistling through the air with her. The troll decided to give up his first attempt of the spell and moved. Alexa landed on hr forelegs first and instantly pushed off with them and when her hind legs hit the ground she pushed off with them too, sending her back into the air again at the troll. Instead of moving the troll swung the wooden staff up at Alexa and hit her on the side of her chest. She fell to the side and fell into a heap while blue light again formed around the tip of the staff. Alexa tried to get up but failed and slumped over again. She tried many times but kept failing, but at last she got herself onto her back, from which she sat up. The troll smiled and pulled back the staff so as to fling the beam at Alexa, but Alexa smiled back which confused the troll, and he stopped pulling back his arm. Alexa didn't wait, she flung the knife at the troll, who in panic attempted to fire the spell but missed horribly as he was hit in the stomach and killed by his own knife.

Chris ran down the streets with some trolls still chasing him, hoping to give his family time to run. As he ran back around to where the situation was happening, still on all fours, he jumped over a fence and fell down two stories, which the trolls didn't want to do, so they left him alone. Chris ran back but found the situation the same, only the trolls were holding his family in their arms and they were leaving with them. His sister cried and his parents twisted and turned frantically, but to no avail. Chris ran after them but was headed off by another group of trolls who looked at him and smiled, showing sharp, bloodstained teeth. Chris shuttered and started to back up, but as he did he ran into something hard. He turned and found another troll showing the same smile at him. Chris backed himself back into the middle of a circle of trolls. One yelled something that was a blur to Chris and as soon as the voice faded, his eyes filled with blue light.

_2_

_Setting Off_

Chris awoke with pain shooting through his entire body. He tried to sit up but the pain was too great, and he fell back into the bed on which he had woken up on. "So, you're awake. I was wondering whether you would make it through," a voice commented. Chris tried to talk but it hurt his throat just breathing. "You're lucky to be alive," the voice said again. The voice sounded old and raspy. "I know you're wondering what happened to your family. They were taken away to Sheerface." Chris started writhe in the bed, twisting and turning in anger. Sheerface was the troll capital which was many miles away. "Calm down, I can help you save them. The carrier of the voice stepped forward and Chris saw who it was. It was a red lizard with yellow stripes running around all over his body like veins. He wore a blue and gold tabard and stood in a military fashion on his hind legs. He had massive talons and they looked very sharp. The lizard was one of the town's elders, who were selected by the king of the town. They were respected men who had to be of the age of 60 or more and the have to have been born in the town. This one Chris recognized as the old leader of the military from before the town was destroyed the years ago. "I'm General Sikes. You might know who I am. I have always hated the trolls, though I don't think anyone likes them so it makes no difference. But I have had an especially large grudge against them since they defeated my men those years ago. I plan to go there and kill their leader, Kall, who is also the man who ran off with your family, thinking it was mine. His death has been my wish every since I heard the name, and mine his. And now I want you to come with me, since they have your family there I thought you'd be interested. I know that… Alex girl wants to come if you do. I saw her kill one of the trolls when they came not long ago." More anger flowed into Chris, not just against Kall, but Sikes too. Because of his personal war against Kall his family was taken as prisoners. Sikes noticed the angry look that Chris gave him.


End file.
